Five Stories
by ShinobiCyrus
Summary: The Greatest Stories Never Told
1. Whitewater who?

**Come to think of it, who owns e-bay anyway?**

**Five Stories**

"_Think where man's glory most begins and ends,  
And say my glory was I had such friends."_

-William Butler Yeats: _The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited_

* * *

**'Aye, sea turtles…'**

Beast Boy enjoyed an empty common room as he toyed on the computer, the other Titans preoccupied with their own things. There hadn't been a new video game release worth buying, and the games he already had weren't as fun without another player. And well…Beast Boy wasn't _technically _allowed to use the Tower's top-of-the-line computers to surf the web, so the changeling waited for just the right time to make his move. Star was out shopping, Cy took the T-car for a drive, Robin was in his workroom tinkering with his equipment, and Raven…

"What are you doing?" a dreary voiced inquired behind him. Yelping like a frightened kitten, Beast Boy swiveled his chair to face-

Oh right...Raven.

_Just play it cool, man. _"Nothing…" he said innocently, making sure his head blocked Raven's view of the screen. "Just surfing, that's all."

Without her hood, BB caught the dubious expression on the dark girl's face. "Beast Boy," she said slowly, "didn't Robin _ban_ _you_ from using internet?"

"Geez, sell some of Robin's spare bird-a-rangs on e-bay and suddenly I'm in the Brotherhood of Evil. He already punished me for that!"

"You were _supposed_ to fix the obstacle course; not invite two hundred sea turtles to crawl on our island during mating season."

The green boy blinked. "Sooooo…?"

Making a large effort not to blow something up in her frustration, Raven took in a deep breath and huffed, "_So, _after two straight nights of being kept awake by turtle mating calls until Aqualad convinced them to leave, Robin banned you from using the internet _ever again._"

"…...really?"

Growling to herself, the sorceress pulled up her hood and floated away. "Whatever. Now I just want my tea…"

Beast Boy punched his fist silently in the air. _Playing dumb: works every time_.

---------------------------------**In lieu of recent events…**--------------------------------

Locking his workshop door with heavy bolts, Cyborg feverishly opened the package he had managed to sneak past Beast Boy and Robin. Practicing the utmost care, he lifted the box slowly open to reveal the greatest gem of beauty ever to be wrapped in silicon, circuits, and plastic. Both human and mechanical eyes lit with rapture, "it's so beautiful…."

Held reverently in Cyborg's caring steel hands… A brand new, next-generation **_Gamestation 3_** "And it's all **MINE**!"

Cyborg never did understand why all those evil genius' the Titans found themselves fighting always insisted on laughing maniacally.

Until now.

**----------------Results may vary---------------**

FAVORITE COLOURS? **Green and Purple**

PEOPLE SKILLS? **Popular; the center of attention**

YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING: **Refreshed and energized!**

FAVORITE POWER: **Flying! Duh! **

FAVORITE TITAN: **Robin**

CONTINUE? Y/N

Beast Boy re-checked his responses as he chuckled to himself. "Man, I love these things."

"What things?" Hair shooting to their ends, Beast Boy nearly fell off the swivel chair when Robin materialized from nowhere and leaned over the changeling's shoulder to read the computer screen.

The Boy Wonder's eyebrows arched. "'Which Titan are you?' You visit our fan sites? Scratch that: you take quizzes to find out _which Titan you are_?"

Pointed ears drooping, Beast Boy blushed as he scratched the back of his head timidly. "I was just….uh….checking the accuracy of Titan personality tests online?"

Shaking his head, Robin crossed his arms. "Man, I really have to step up our training schedule if you have this much free time." He paused when a thought occurred to him. "And didn't I _specifically tell you_ you're not allowed to go online after that thing with the sea turtles?"

"You've got a problem with sea turtles?"

"I do when I can hear them mating."

YOUR RESULTS ARE IN!

The two Titan's attention turned to the screen.

YOU ARE: **STARFIRE _(93)_**

"SAY WHAT?"

"Hey you guys! Check this out!"

"HAHAHAHA! Nice one grass stain!"

"I find this very puzzling…"

"Disturbing. Very disturbing…"

---------------------------------**'Tis the season**--------------------------

"The details are blurry. _How_ did you convince me to do this?"

"'Cause it's better than being stuck in the tower with Robin and Star while their watching a scary movie together?" Beast Boy suggested.

Raven's already permanent scowl soured. "Oh right. That."

"So Raven, what's our job again?"

Groaning to herself, Raven reluctantly recited the night's itinerary. "As you're trick or treating in your 'costume', I'm supposed to ring the doorbells of the poor, hapless fools dumb enough to give you sugar in large quantities."

Giving her a wide grin, BB shot Raven a thumbs up. "No worries then. Alright, let's score us some free candy!"

"Oh be still my foolish heart."

The wonderful thing about Halloween is, whenever someone opens their door to find a green dinosaur with a bag of candy hanging from its mouth flanked by a dark, gloomy girl hooded and cloaked, they're not as alarmed as they would be if the same thing happened say….November 1st.

"Whoa!" the resident of house 206 admired. "That's an awesome Velociraptor costume!"

"Actually, he's a _Deinonychus_," Raven corrected. "Common mistake, really."

"Well whatever he is, it's an amazing costume!" digging into his candy bowl, he dumped a large handful in Beast Boy's already bulging sack. "Here you go, you deserve it!"

_Deinonychus _Beast Boy grunted through his teeth.

"He says 'thank you'," Raven translated.

"You know," the dark girl admitted to the defiance of extinction alongside her on the sidewalk, "this Halloween thing isn't so bad. It's the only day here where I can be myself and people don't think I'm creepy."

In fact, Beast Boy got most of the looks from many parents and children passing by. Crossing paths with a seven-year-old looking girl dressed as a faerie of some kind, the child froze where she was and stared.

The hooded sorceress and the snorting dinosaur stared back.

A full ten seconds of silence later, the girl screamed in high pitched terror and ran from the pair as fast as those short, seven-year-old legs could send her. "Mooommmy! Heeeeeeellllppppp! Don't let the scary witch-lady get meeeeeee!"

Raven shot Beast Boy a dark look. She didn't know if dinosaurs could grin, but it sure seemed like _this one_ was.

"Not one word…." She warned.

**--------------------------------------------She saw it on Fox-----------------------------------------**

_Why Starfire should not watch television: _

"Friend Beast Boy, I am much concerned….is it possible for you to catch the 'bird-flu'?"

It took several days and some serious goading of new video games for the Titans to get their green little changeling out of his room.

"Star," Robin said to her. "We warned you to be careful after the 'Mad Cow' incident, remember?"

"Bad news grass stain, some fungus is killing off frogs in the rain forest."

"CYBORG!"

"Noooo! Not the frogs too!"

* * *

**Between college, family squabbles, and a horrible case of writers block, I've neglected all the readers waiting for my next chapter of Destiny's Threads for over two months. While I am settling back into writing, these random tidbits should give you a few chuckles, at least. Five Stories will be updated whenever I get some silly, created whim (or consume lots of coke….the cola, people); I've got plenty of ideas for more short stories. **

**The idea for these short stories was inspired by my sister's fic: Whitewater. Just look up Guardiansaiyoko. She's excellent. **

**In the meantime…reviews please? **


	2. Way Past Cool

**Yes, I do- in fact- own Teen Titans. Not only that, the word 'gullible' has been typed on the veeeerrry bottom of the page. Go ahead, take a look. **

"'_Fair and foul are near of kin,  
And fair needs foul,' I cried.  
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth  
Nor grave nor bed denied.'"_

**-William Butler Yeats, **"_Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop"_

* * *

**Day Owls?**

At first he thought it was a bad case of insomnia, lying on his bedroom floor cushioned by wrinkled piles of clothes as he stared up at the ceiling during the deeper hours of the night. It was only after Robin berated a green-haired cat for sleeping through the entire afternoon's training sessions did Beast Boy start wondering if there was something wrong. Maybe some of his nocturnal animal instincts were boiling to the surface; it would certainly explain why the changeling finally gave up trying to sleep and restlessly wandered around the tower at three a.m.

Beast Boy was becoming a night-owl. Or was it a raccoon? Or a fox, or a flying squirrel, or a possum…no wait- a Whippoorwill!

_The Titans slowly turned their heads the changeling's direction, who was still giggling to himself on the couch. _

"_Uh…you okay there BB?" Cyborg asked._

"_Hey…Robin, hey Robin…check this out: _'Whippoorwill'_! heheheheheheheh…"_

or maybe a Lumholtz tree-climbing kangaroos hopping native to the Australian Rain Rorest!

No…wait…owl, he was pretty sure it was night-owl. Why did they call it 'night owl' anyways? There's no such things as 'day owls'… that's a…what did Raven call those things?

_Raven shook her head as she returned to her book. "Moron."_

An Ox-Moron! Oxy-Mormons. Stupid Day owls…

"_Hey! I'm no Mormon!"_

"_Please, what is this 'Poor-whipping-will' Friend Beast Boy speaks of?"_

"_Are _sure_ you're feeling okay, Beast Boy?" Robin said warily. _

Him? Oh he fine! Great, even! Just like that funny Tiger on the cereal boxes. **GREEEAAT!** Man, those things really hit the spot.

_Robin was afraid to ask. "What things?"_

Oh, you know, those energy drinks they sell right next to the cappuccinos and the big plastic bottles of pop. Now Robin couldn't yell at him anymore for sleeping through training or Titan alerts 'cause he was **GREA- **y'know, those corn flakes with the frosting on them sure would be tasty right now…

_Raven blinked as Beast Boy shifted into a Tiger and pounced onto the kitchen counter, sniffing the cabinets for food. "I think we may have a problem here…"_

* * *

**Mild Misanthropy**

There were moments when Raven truly hated living in this realm.

Christmas, for instance.

Pressing her back hard against the wall to prevent being trampled, Raven cast a glance at Robin. "Why didn't you warn me about this?"

"What, you mean frantic holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving?"

The sorceress snarled between clenched teeth. "_Yes._"

Smiling crookedly, Robin hunched his shoulders and hid buried his hands in his pockets. "Live and learn, Raven. Yousaid you wanted to 'get your Christmas shopping over with.'"

"You _know _I don't like crowds."

"Hey, I'm carrying your bags for you, aren't I?" he replied, making a show of hefting the collection of various shopping bags gathered over the day. Privately, Robin admitted to himself he _could have _warned Raven how hectic the city was on Black Friday, but Raven had asked him to help with her shopping, and he hadn't the heart to correct her.

At least they didn't look like Titans at first glance; Raven was reluctant to change clothes, but the last thing they needed was the needless attention piled the insanity of the season. Robin had been cruising around the city that day in a red sweater, gray cargo pants, wraparound sunglasses to replace his mask, and- just because he missed his cape- a black trenchcoat.

"Come on Rae, just one last present, then we'll go out for coffee and head home, deal?"

Raven debated weaving threads of black magick into a tapestry of mind-bending suffering and horrible hair…but realized she was far too tired to do anything but finish her shopping so she could barricade herself in her room with a cup of tea.

To spite her protests, Raven agreed in the end to play incognito while they were at the mall. Since her wardrobe lacked variety, Raven had to borrow a faded pair of jeans from Robin to wear over her leotard and managed to dig a black hooded poncho from her closet.

Taking a deep breath, the dark girl reluctantly followed Robin back into the crowd. Cramped and uneasy, Raven tried to close her third eye as her empathic senses felt the haphazard, residual emotions from the thousands clogging the mall.

There was a reason why she didn't like crowds. Or people, really. It was so much easier back on Azarath. The elegant city, small as it was, had plenty of room for the handful of several hundred monks residing in its walls. Reared their entire lives by the teachings of Azar, they were passively detached from the world around them. It was a society of wisdom and intellect, everyone's minds closed and their emotions properly disciplined.

Being an empath on Earth was a little harder.

Still, there was one person she trusted with this mild demophobia. Someone understanding enough to stand in the overcrowded lines instead and bought her things for her at the register.

"Robin?" she asked warily; he held her hand and confidently guided her through the crowd.

She almost caught the eyes hiding behind the sunglasses. "Yeah?"

"…..thanks."

* * *

**Playing Hero**

_Why _do people bother walking into dark alleys these days? Seriously: bad part of town, dead of night, cute girl with her purse hanging off a spaghetti-string strap? It was all numbers tallying up to an easy target; that idiot girl was practically _paying them _to give her trouble.

A ghost's shadow lurked off the roof's edge looking down into the alley. Two black-cap amateurs with knives pressed threateningly on the girl from both sides.

He shook his head. This wasn't his problem. If that blond was thick enough to walk alone down the street dressed up for a night club, she deserved it.

"Just give us your money!"

"Somebody help me, _please!_"

"Shut her up!"

Although…

Well, she _was _pretty cute.

Growling with irritation, Red-X muttered "I just _know _I'm gonna regret this…"

Diving from the roof, X twisted nimbly in mid-air like a black wisp of air. Cutting off his four story freefall short, the thief caught the rails of a fire escape to shave off his momentum before somersaulting and landing behind the thugs in a low crouch.

Alerted only by the rattle of the overhead fire escape, the muggers scarcely had time to turn before X sprung to the left, batting one thug's knife aside and landing a heavy palm on his chest. The breath pounded straight out of his lungs, the first attacker crashed into a clutter of garbage behind him- giving no indication of picking himself up in the near future. Bending deftly beneath arc of the second knife, X swept his leg across the other mugger's ankle, bringing him down hard onto the pavement so X could disable him with a strike to the throat.

Hardly grateful, the girl cringed as X stood. It was hardly an improvement: two large men wielding knives replaced by a thin, skull-faced figure that looked like an aspiring grim reaper.

"Relax," X chagrined her with that sharp electric voice. "I'm not the bad guy here." Seconds passed before X retracted himself clumsily. "Well, I guess I kinda _am_…but I'm not the kind that steals purses…I mean, I steal stuff all the time, but I nobody actually sees…it…"

The burglar's caped shoulders slumped as he vented frustration through his mask.

"Who are you?" she whispered fearfully.

X's awkward hesitation faded with a skeletal grin; he couldn't resist _this_ after going through the trouble of playing hero.

Spreading his arms with a theatrical flair of his cape, Red-X declared, "I am an **X**tractor of the **X**otic, **X**ploring the oft **X**cluded lu**X**uries of the **X**ecutive. I make no **X**cuses, my **X**cursions have earned me **X**ile, but I am **X**empt from your everyday **X**changes- for I am an **X**traordinary **X**ample free to **X**ecute and **X**press my…..uh…." Half breathless from his speech, X stuttered as his train of thought ran out of track. "Sorry, kinda running outta words with 'x' in it. Oh don't give me that look, how about you try, huh?"

No less fearful, the blonde girl stared at X with wide-eyes. "Are you, like, some kind of whacko or something?"

"Yeah," he scoffed. "'Or something'. Knew I was going to regret this. Screw it, I'm outers. Go call the cops 'or something', and get yourself some common sense while you're at it." Skipping off the far wall, X rebounded back onto the fire escape before teleporting away in a blurry flicker.

Eyes still locked with the empty spot of air X occupied just seconds ago, the blonde girl realized her shoulder was curiously light.

"Hey, where'd my purse go?"

* * *

"**I'm waaaaiting…"**

Tapping her foot impatiently, Raven stalked back and forth across the bathroom door as she had been doing for the past half house before her patience squeezed out its last drop. "Who's in there?" she pounded. "Other people in this tower need to bathroom too!"

A voice Raven often associated with pure aggravation spoke up meekly. "Sorry Rae…just…uh…taking a bath…why don't you use the one upstairs?"

Raven crossed her arms, redundant considering Beast Boy couldn't see her. "I would be using that bathroom if _somebody _wasn't trying to make his home-made eggnog in the bathtub!"

"Apologies, Friend Raven," Starfire's voice joining in. "Could you please come back later, perhaps?"

Beast Boy and Starfire in the bathroom…the sorceress' brows rose a pitch. "Beast Boy, is _Starfire_ in there with you?"

"Uh...no?..."

"That's it, you two better open this door right now before I phase myself through it."

"Okay, okay…" the changeling sounded defeated.

The bathroom door slid open reluctantly.

Ears drooping, Beast Boy stood dejected in from of Raven in his swimming trunks, his fur a messy mix of green, blue, and cyan.

Spying over Beast Boy's shoulders, Raven noted the bathtub was filled with blue water.

"You got into Robin's chemistry set again, didn't you?"

Starfire, the skin of her usually orange hands tinged blue, giggled nervously.

"We were attempting for Beast Boy to be The Hedgehog of Sonic?"

* * *

**Hubbert's Law**

Cyborg was never one to believe in 'hell' or 'the devil'. To a man whose mind was half-wired to a computer, God, divine punishment, the afterlife; it really wasn't something he bothered himself with. Still, if there really _was_ a hell, he had a feeling is exactly how it would look.

Jump City's tall, serene towers of glass were now sculptures of twisted metal. Cars were rusted husks, tree were skeletal and blackened, Titan's Tower was a ruin surrounded by a sea of lava, and every living person was petrified to stone.

So when he stumbled into Beast Boy, alive and unharmed, he was relieved in a way no one can grasp until they almost loose something dear to them.

I mean, Cyborg didn't even love his _car _that much.

The green changeling stared up at a red sky as clouds like smoke sprinkled volcanic ash on the city like hell's own snowflakes.

"Yo grass stain," Cyborg spoke up. "Remember when you snuck into Raven's room 'cause you wanted to find out more about her."

Beast Boy's smile was sadly wistful. "Yeah, and then we got sucked into her mind through that creepy mirror."

Trigon came instantly to Cyborg's mind; that extra-dimension demon using his own daughter as a door to wreak havoc on their home. If it were possible for him to have goosebumps, they'd been prickling every inch of his skin. "Betch'ya wishin' you didn't know all this right about her now, aren't you?"

"Nah."

Cyborg perked his head at his green buddy, who was still staring up at the smoldering crimson sky. "All this; her destiny, her dad- it's all a part of her too. A part of her she's been scared of her entire life. I'm glad I'm Raven's friend, 'cause I'm gonna be by her side for this whole thing, and we'll make through, _together_!"

Framed the hellish sky behind him, Beast Boy clench his gloved fist in grim determination.

For the first time since the End of the World started, Cyborg had a hopeful smile. "You have your moments sometimes, BB."

"Hey, if Rae's dad is like this, what do you think her mom was like?"

"I dunno, but if Big, Red, and Horny is any indication, I'm gonna hafta guess she takes after _her_."

* * *

"_A friend is the person who knows all about you and still loves you."_

**-Elbert Hubbert**

**  
Hope you enjoyed the second chapter folks, more will be on the way eventually; but it's finals time at my college, and I have my future and stuff to think about…but, whatever. Anywhoo, this chappy (hell, the whole damn mess of stories) is dedicated to the true King of the Craft: Guardiansaiyoko. Yeah, I can admit Sai's the better writer. **

**'Gullible'**

Ha-ha! You looked!


	3. Iris

**(For Sarah)**

"_For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."_

**-William Butler Yeats, _The Stolen Child_**

* * *

**Irises**

His mother once told him_: "Whenever the bad things in the world take something precious from you, the world always gets around to giving you something else. It's not the same thing, but it's just as precious."_

Years later, when his mother was nothing more than a bloodstained memory that could never wash away, the Man in Black he now called Father warned him of the pain they shared. _"Grief is the enemy. There's no time for grief. There's no room for grief. Grief turns into acceptance. Forgiveness. Grief forgives what can never be forgiven. Never."_

Explaining he would be out of town for two days, Robin left Cyborg in charge and disappeared without another explanation. Pure trust in him kept the Titans from a panicked search of the city…that, and the fact Robin dropped off of everyone'_s _radar like this _every_ year.

And every year around this same time, a boy with no name appears on the East Coast near Gotham City, eyes always hiding behind a pair of wraparound sunglasses than a mask. His dark hair was always messy and unkempt- unlike the Titan's Teen Wonder. A black trenchcoat whipping the air like a shudder in the wind-chill, this dark boy ghosted Gotham's graveyards during the winter season, leaving behind only pair of bright yellow Iris flowers to mark the shared grave of two nobody circus performers who've long been dead for almost a decade.

* * *

**Subtle Love Songs**

He was bored and had the living room all to himself. In Titan's Tower, leaving Beast Boy alone to own devices was the usual recipe for trouble.

Fortunately, Beast Boy didn't feel like trouble that morning. The team had run around the city almost the entire night before chasing down Johnny Rancid as he took a joyride in his new monster truck. 'Monster' being the word, as Johnny decided to bolt his giant mechanical dog to the frame of a truck.

And since no one even bothered remembering it took _energy _to flap his arms to fly, Beast Boy had exhausted himself to the point of collapsing onto the couch and sleeping through the entire morning still in uniform.

So when the changeling woke up sometime during the afternoon found a sticky-note posted to the Television explaining the team had gone to the mall shopping, he had only one thought on his mind…

"Aw yeah! BB's in the HOWWSSE! Let's RAWK!"

The couch cushions were quite comfy. And bouncy; good for jumping on.

But bad for dancing.

Thunk

"Ow…"

Fishing a CD from his collection on the shelf, Beast Boy fed the music to the Titan's multi-disk tray, turned up the volume to 'make my ears red' and pressed PLAY. Strumming the strings of a guitar only he could see, the green teen swayed to the rhythm as sang the lyrics with enough talent that….left much to be desired.

"And I'd give up forever to touch you, 'cause I know that you feel me somehow/you're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be; and I don't want to go home right now…"_  
_

A small little detail Beast Boy failed to realize before starting his little 'solo', however, was that even though his teammates had left a note saying they had gone to the mall, it didn't mean _everyone _had gone to the mall.

Especially since Raven wasn't exactly a mall rat in her own right...

"And all I can taste is this moment, and all I can breathe is your life… 'cause sooner or later it's over…I just don't want to miss you tonight…"

And when Raven stalked into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, Beast Boy didn't notice her until the second verse. To his credit, when the changeling finally noticed he had an audience, his singing or air-guitaring didn't skip a beat. Instead, he slid across to floor towards her, pronouncing the notes on his invisible guitar as he sang with a grinfull of fangs.

"And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming, Or the moment of truth in your lies…When everything seems like the movies, yeah you bleed just to know you're aliiiivvveee….

"You really are a terrible singer, so you know," Raven commented monotonously.

And he sang on, even louder. "And I don't want the world to see me, 'cause I don't think that they'd understand! When everything's made to be broken; I just want you to know who I AAAAMMMMMMMMMM-"

Sending a tremor of her power into the CD player, Beast Boy's song cut rudely out of the speakers. The music player still glowing the a black aura, its tray shuffled inside itself and blasted a new track from another disc.

"_I love you, I hate you, I can't get around you…"_

"There," the sorceress declared with a rouge smirk. "Much better."

Smiling widely, Beast Boy thrummed wildly on his guitar of air, howling with Raven's new song. "I breathe you, I taste you, I can't live without you!"

Raven shook her as BB nudged her shoulder, urging her to join in. "I just can't take anymore, this life of solitude…I guess that I'm out the door, And now I'm done with you!"

Finally relenting with a sigh, Raven whispered with him and the music.

_(Done with you, done with you, done with you, done with you, done with you)_

Another flicker of black shut the music off. The air between them seemed empty without it.

"You're still a lousy singer."

"Yeah, I know."

* * *

**Past Lives**

It was an unspoken taboo; their lives before the Titans.

After her brief visit into Robin's mind, Raven kept the memories of soaring ropes, circus tents, fire, blood, and grief to herself. Cyborg noticed when his green buddy grew quiet during heavy rainstorms; Beast Boy's mile-long stare searching for something he had lost in the violent, surging waves.

Tinkering in the garage with Robin, Cyborg once mentioned a rocky relationship with his father and a girlfriend who dumped him after his prosthetics were installed, but never once mentioned his mother.

Starfire's older sister Blackfire was and occasional criminal the team had to tackle, and they had all visited Tamaran and met Star's k'norfka; but none of the Titans could recall her saying anything her parents in the princess' endless stream of dialogue about her homeworld.

Raven's mother was just another whisper among the ghosts of Azarath, and her father…

Well, Trigon the Terrible needed no explanation.

It started out as just a joke Cyborg and Beast Boy cooked up, and Starfire was delighted to participate with them on a certain 'Day of Fathers'. Raven outright refused, attending the surprise party only because it happened to be thrown in the common room while she was reading.

Cy and BB still thought Robin's reaction was hilarious.

"For the last time Beast Boy! I'm _not_ your daddy!"

Ever since that first prank party, Father's Day at Titans Tower was unofficially called 'Robin Day'.

* * *

**Star Child**

"Now…let us see if I have understood this correctly," Starfire said with careful thought. "This Holy Carpenter person was nailed with much irony to a plus-shaped piece of wood for committing a crime he did not in actuality commit?"

Skilled at multitasking, Raven levitated in the lotus position as she turned the page of her book and said with a taxed sigh, "Yes, Star. That's just about how it happened."

"This Earth-lore is quite gruesome," mused Starfire. "On Tamaran, we believe our people were born from the ashes of burning stars, just as our planet, solar system, and galaxy was. It is said our gifts of flight and strength, star bolts, and even our fair skin were gifts from the very guardian star we orbit, as we are all its children."

"How poetic. Just to remind you though, I'm not from this dimension; Earth's lore is just as weird for me as it is for you."

It was mercifully quiet as Starfire hovered alongside Raven, tapping her finger to her lip thoughtfully. Finally, she decided aloud "I believe I enjoy Friend Beast Boy's description of this 'Chris-legend' better."

Raven's hooded head lifted from her book. "How's that?"

"According to him, the after the Christ-man dies, he somehow moves the large rock covering his tomb, walks out, and dooms the Earth to six more weeks of winter if he sees his shadow."

* * *

**Out of the frying pan…**

"Raven! Save me!"

She was just passing through the hall when Beast Boy rounded and corner and ran towards her like a frantic rabbit fleeing from a fox. Before she could even react, a fuzzy green squirrel darted under her cloak and clutched the sorceress leg.

Cyborg approached her not a moment later, human and mechanical eyes searching as the sonic cannon whined, alive and hungry. "Where is he? Where'd that no good snot colored fuzz ball run off to!"

The squirrel trembling madly against her leg, Raven silently pointed downwards to her feet.

For a guy with a computer for a brain, Cyborg wasn't that bright. "AH-HA! Went downstairs did he? Thanks Rae, that little grass stain can't run from me! I know _everything_ that goes on in this tower!"

When Cyborg's mad ramblings fell quiet enough in the halls, Beast Boy's human head peeked from under Raven's cloak. "Is it safe to come out?"

"What _did_ you do?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I _didn't_ do: wrap the T-Car in three layers of plastic wrap."

Rolling her eyes, Raven waited a moment before asking dryly. "Beast Boy? You mind…uh…getting out from under my legs?"

Still eyeing the hallway warily for Cyborg, the changeling was dense to the concept. "Huh? Why?"

"It's…not…_appropriate_." She said slowly.

Beast Boy stared up at her with a puzzled look…until it suddenly dawned on him where exactly his head was in relation to Raven's legs. Seeing the green boy blush was always interesting to watch. "Hehehehe….oh right, you're a girl, aren't you? S'easy to forget sometimes."

So much like a deer in the headlights, Beast Boys froze when Raven's eyes flashed blood red.

"Robin! Save me!"

* * *

**NEVER tell a girl it's easy to forget she is one. It makes the situation that much worse when you're accidentally…_touching_ something you shouldn't. I learned that from Saiyoko the hard way. Anywhoo's, not only do I not own Teen Titans, I don't own Goo Goo Dolls 'Iris' or Saliva's 'Always'. Sorry if that seemed to songfic-y (yes, that's a real world, wanna fight about it?), but I couldn't resist. As usual, reviews, constructive criticisms and the like are always appreciated. I plan to have a new chapter released on Christmas day, after that is anybody's guess. **

**See you next time and thanks for reading, **

**-Cy**


	4. A Very Belated Christmas

"_For everything that's lovely is  
but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight."_

**-William Butler Yeats; Never Give All the Heart**

* * *

**He shouldn't have looked up**

His papers still warm from the printer, Robin studied the domestic profiles for Jump's urban and business districts. The magical time between Thanksgiving and New Year' Day wasn't excluded to the mad holiday shopping- 'good will towards men' and 'peace on earth' was hardly a criminal deterrent.

Thus, unlike normal teenager's their age, the Titan's didn't have a Christmas vacation.

It was all old news to Robin; Christmas seemed to loose its spirit after endless training in a dark cave as an orphan. And the Dark Knight was hardly the "Merry Christmas! Here, have some seasonally shaped cookies and milk!" type.

That was what the butler was for.

So when Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire put up tinsel and Christmas lights and set up mistletoe like lethal booby traps, Robin was pouring over city maps and crime reports plotting their holiday patrol route for the month.

Crossing the common room with his eyes tied to his work, Robin had no warning as Cyborg entered- until the collision, that is.

"Whoa there, Rob. You okay man?"

Picking himself up amidst fluttering papers, Robin rubbed his backside. "Yeah, I'm fine Cy. Just bruised my pride is all."

The half-metal Titan set down the armful of bulging sacks he was carrying and helped Robin scoop up all the scattered paperwork. "What's all this?"

"Patrol routes for the month."

Cyborg froze tensely; staring at the papers much like Beast Boy stared at their football when they told him 'pigskin' wasn't just jargon. Robin was conflicted between rolling his eyes or chasing Cyborg around the room with his 'evil work schedules of doom'.

He settled on a chuckle; that second option was overdone anyway. Rearranging the sheets into an organized pile, Robin motioned at Cy's bags with a nod. "What're those?"

"Fan mail. Lotsa Christmas cards this year."

"I could have sworn we had more than just a few sacks worth last year."

"We did. These are all just Star's mail."

A certain alien princess' heartthrob ground his teeth. "I see…"

Expecting some half-clever comment about 'the love-birds' any moment, Robin steadied himself as Cyborg…just stood there.

"Cy?"

"Dude, whatever you do, _don't look up_."

Why did he have to say that?

Robin arched his head upwards.

Aw crap.

"I told you not to look up."

Insidiously planted over the doorway- using its power to hold the two Titans in place with sheer terror alone- hung a seemingly innocent decoration of mistletoe.

They were at a loss for what to do, the thought of just walking away from the thing never reaching them. It wouldn't matter even if they had, the damage was already done.

Then, Cyborg, with the slow deliberation of someone disarming a bomb (someone _besides _Cyborg, as Cy had disarmed plenty of bombs. It seemed the mistletoe was more terrifying to him than any bundle of primed C4 could ever be), he lifted his finger towards to little piece of evil hanging over their heads. A small jet of flame jutted from his fingertip, burning the mistletoe to ashes in seconds.

It was quite a while before Robin finally said. "I'm just gonna go and finished these reports."

Cyborg seemed just as eager to leave. "I'm gonna erase this moment from my hard drive and forget it ever happened. "

The little pile of ashes now all alone in the doorway like some forgotten dust, Beast Boy ducked back behind the kitchen counter and grinned at his camera. "And I'm gonna go get this film developed."

* * *

**Lingering Hurt**

She realized the patter of large wings outside her window hadn't been a dream when she saw the giftwrapped box lying on the fire escape. Tears pooled her eyes when she saw the necklace; a glass butterfly swayed on a silver chain, gleaming like a rainbow jewel as the sunlight laced through it.

It was just too much.

She collapsed, back sliding down the wall as she curled into herself. Clutching the butterfly to her chest, mussy blonde hair fell over the girl's eyes as she cried with choked sobs, mourning over memories from a life that could never be again.

* * *

**Christmas Hoot Kloot **

Cyborg releasing his grip on his shoulders, Beast Boy pounced on his pile of presents like something less civilized. After several brutal moments of claws and shredded wrapping paper, Beast Boy emerged from the brightly colored gore with an expression of pure childish bliss on his face. Having opened all his presents at once, the changeling avidly dug through the garbage piled around him and pulled out the gift Cyborg had given him.

Robin and Raven exchanged puzzled glances.

When in doubt, Beast Boy always loved a stuffed animal.

Not this one.

"It is my understanding," Starfire voiced her puzzlement. "that Earth panthers are rarely pink, correct?"

From the glowering look Beast Boy was sending Cyborg's way, he'd have been happier with a greasy cheeseburger than a Pink Panther doll.

Snarling ferociously Beast Boy jumped onto his friend's shoulder and struggled to wrap his hands around the steel of Cyborg's neck.

"You **SWORE** you'd never mention that again!"

"Heheheheheh….look ya'll!" he laughed despite the little changling trying to strangle him. "The grass-stain's hands're too little to wrap around my neck."

His laughter choked off as thick gorilla mitts replaced Beast Boy's grip.

"The funny…" he gurgled, "It went away…"

* * *

**Season's Greetings**

_Dear Losers,_

_Consider the fact I didn't rob you guys blind my Christmas present to you. Your security system blows more chunks than bad holiday fruitcake. Remind that metal guy to make it a little harder next year. I look forward to another year of unrequited robbery, less-than petty theft, and making complete morons outta you all._

_Thanks for the free cookies, suckers!_

_-**X** _

"Well," Robin said. "At least we know what happened to Star's cookies."

"You think we should tell Star?" Beast Boy asked.

"A most Merry of Chris-masses friend Cyborg! Wonderful news: the Santa Clause has accepted my offering of milk and cookies!"

"Never mind."

"How long do you think it will take for Star's cooking to catch up with X?" Raven wondered.

Robin turned the paper over and presented it to her.

_P.S: You're out of Pepto-Bismol_

* * *

**A thoughtful act of suicide**

"Two minutes ya'll!" Cyborg announced. "Get ready!"

Beast Boy finished off his fifth can of soda that evening, guaranteeing he wouldn't be going to sleep until bright in morning of New Year's Day. Through the common room windows, Jump was a gaudy display of lights and noise across the bay. Their dominating big-screen TV whittling away at the countdown time, Beast Boy sat on the far arm of the couch- as far away as he could manage- across from Robin and Starfire as they snuggled on the couch waiting for the rest of the year to go by.

Grimacing at the impossible dimensions of Cyborg's sandwiches, Raven took her fresh cup of tea and float wordlessly near Beast Boy, watching the timer count down with mild disinterest.

Overdosed on sugar and caffeine, Beast Boy shifted and stretched on the cushions much like a cat too restless to sleep. "So Rae, got any New Year's resolutions?"

"I resolved years ago to not make anymore resolutions."

He chucked, it figured. With just over a minute until midnight arrived, Beast Boy glanced back down the coach at the cuddling couple. "Cy bet me twenty bucks those two would finally have a New Year's kiss this year." He told her.

The dark girl's attention abruptly off her tea, Raven regarded Beast Boy with something more like bewilderment than her usual soured annoyance. "What?"

BB matched her lost expression and raised it. "Huh?"

"New Year's have kisses too?" Raven asked incredulously.

"You didn't know?"

"Not from this dimension, remember?" she jeered.

"Ten seconds everyone!" Robin called on the couch.

Excluding Raven, the Teen Titans counted down the final ten seconds with the rest of the city, cheering as their TV declared;

"**HAPPY NEW YEAR!"**

"Huzzah." Raven contributed dully.

Beast Boy ignored Cyborg's brutal devouring of whole foot-long sandwiches and Robin's blushing face as he leaned closer to Star. Raven was tired; her eyes heavy with weariness. She hadn't left her room much since Christmas, living off of herbal tea and her new books. Now that the changeling thought, he didn't think he ever saw Raven all that excited about holidays. Cabin fever at its worst.

"Hey Rae?"

The hooded girl turned slowly to face him. "What?"

"Just…don't blow me up…okay?"

Standing on the couch's arm to reach her, Beast Boy pecked Raven lightly on her cheek…then shrank back for the terror of the inevitable.

But Raven seemed too flabbergasted to do, if even so much as to say, anything. The uncooked bags of popcorn on the coffee table swelled alarmingly in seconds, bursting like balloons and raining warm popcorn on them like edible confetti.

Beast Boy grinned wolfishly at Raven as she blushed. "Happy New Year's."

She smiled back at him lightly. "Happy New Year's. Too bad you won't see how this year ends…"

"Yo, BB!" Cyborg boasted to the green ostrich burying its head between the couch cushions. "Looks like you owe me twenty bucks!"

* * *

**Yes, yes, I realize this little holiday segment was overdue. But between my move and going back to college, I'm just glad this got out before the end of January. I hope you guys had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. With luck, a new chapter should be released pretty soon- me and Saiyoko have been plotting with one another . If for some impossible reason you've been reading Five Stories and never set foot in Sai's Whitewater, go read it now. **

**Till next time,**

**-Cy**


	5. Sai's Five

"_Everything that man esteems  
Endures a moment or a day."_

**-William Butler Yeats; _Two Songs From A Play_**

* * *

**Blackmail **

Hands folded on his desk, Robin studied the photos intently before finally demanding. "Where did you get these?"

"That's not important," Beast Boy assured him. "What _is _important is that I they're scanned and ready to be plastered online."

Sucking in his pride with a long breath, Robin relented. "Fine. Name your price."

"You already know what I want."

"Absolutely not," he hissed through his teeth.

"Aw come on! You've been hogging that red beauty ever since you got her! Just let me have ten minutes with her…"

"No! Get your own, she's mine!"

"Fine," said Beast Boy. "But good luck dodging all those yaoi fangirls when they see those pictures of you and Cyborg underneath the mistl-"

-----------

Having managed to drag the wreck into his garage relatively intact, Cyborg scratched his head at the crumpled mess that was the R-cycle and glanced back at Robin and Beast Boy. "Explain it to me again, _how_ did this happen, exactly?"

The Teen Wonder huffed out unintelligible grumbles.

Beast Boy, his head wrapped in gauze, leaned towards Robin and whispered in his ear. "I've still got seven minutes left on her after Cyborg fixes her up…right?"

* * *

**Moving Day**

His uniform hanging from the bathroom door, Beast Boy scrubbed furiously at the dirt ringing Raven's tub knelt on his knees wearing only his shorts. Raven had been putting him through his paces cleaning up her apartment now that Titan's Tower was finally built.

Still, Beast Boy really didn't mind it much; he owed her for letting him stay here while they waiting for Cyborg to finish construction.

His sensitive nose drilling a fresh headache with all the cleaning chemicals in the air, Beast Boy stepped out of the tub to take a breather just in time to hear Raven at the door.

The knob turned after several brief raps. "Beast Boy, how's the bathroom coming along? We still have the kitchen to finish, you know."

"AHHH!"

Throwing his meager weight against the door, Beast Boy allowed it to crack open enough to peek his head through…and cover the rest of him up. "Don't come in here!" he warned her. "I'm not wearing pants!"

Raven was suddenly very hesitant about being anywhere near the door.

"You know what? Nevermind…Just…come out when you're done. With pants," she added.

* * *

**Rhetorically Challenged **

GAME OVER!

**CYBORG**: 10/ **ROBIN**: 9

PLAYER **CYBORG **IS THE WINNER!

"You know it baby!" Cyborg whooped as he danced with surprising nimbleness for a guy made mostly out of metal. "Who's the man? I da man! No doubt!"

Robin groaned in defeat as he set down his controller. Behind them, Raven rolled her eyes before returning her the book in lap.

But it seemed Cyborg wasn't finished with his victory gloating. "Who's your daddy Rob? Say it! Who's yo DADDY?"

"A grown man dressed as a bat," he replied simply.

"The interdimension embodiment of all evil," Raven contributed as she turned a page.

Chagrined, Cyborg stormed off, grumbling to himself.

* * *

**Spring Cleaning Time**

As Robin cleaned out their fridge in his bright yellow Haz-Mat suit, Raven levitated comfortably in the living room enjoy her new book- the furniture floating several feet off the ground with the vacuum cleaner moving about in a sheath of dark energy.

Smelling strongly of chemicals, Beast Boy entered the common room with a tired whine. "Roooobiiinnn….I finished cleaning the bathrooms, can I watch the rest of the _Super Monkey Robot Team Hyper Force Go! _marathon now?"

Before Robin could respond from beneath his gas mask, Beast Boy yelped frightfully and clung to the safety of one of the floating couches. "Ahhhh! Raven! Keep that thing away from me!"

"What are you talking about?"

Looking too much like a cat in a high tree hiding from a dog, Beast Boy pointed "That thing!"

"Beast Boy, it's a vacuum."

"You say 'vacuum', I say 'Evil Fur-eating machine of screaming death!'"

Smirking, Raven waved her hand and lifted the running vacuum threateningly into the air. Squeeling, Beast Boy leapt from his no-longer-safe hiding place and ran around the living room in a panic, the vacuum whirling at his heels.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHH! Raven! This isn't funny!"

"I'd have to disagree," she said flatly, returning back to her book. For the next few minutes Beast Boy's screams coupled with the vacuum sounded more and more like sweet, calming music.

* * *

**Dogma**

"Excuse me, young miss," the streetside evangelist said with an enlightened smile and an armful of brochures. "Have you found God?"

Brooding thoughtfully beneath her hood, Raven considered her options. None of them came off as especially….proper for a Teen Titan, though many promised glorious satisfaction. Even a measly fraction of the metaphysical knowledge Raven gleamed from a lifetime of astral explorations in the alien spheres of reality would cause the poor believer's brain to implode violently.

"Not really," Raven admitted. "I know the other guy quite a bit, but mostly because he's my father. Don't worry, we don't really talk much."

All higher brain functions skipping out for lunch, the pleasantly beaming evangel froze with a vacant look that mildly resembled terror.

Nodding to herself, Raven resumed her walk down the Avenue's of Jump, her green shadow giggling. "It's funny 'cause it's true…"


	6. Bump for the Win

**Does anyone here own the Titans? 'Cause I'll totally fight you for it. **

"_Move like a beam of light;  
Fly like lightning,  
Strike like thunder,  
Whirl in circles around  
A stable center."_

-Morihei Ueshiba, _The Art of Peace_

* * *

**Little Red Robin…**

Wrapping the last of the athletic tape around his hands, Robin's bare feet spread along the dojo mat as he settled into a solid fighting stance. Save his mask, he had traded his Robin costume for a loose white _judoka_ practice uniform. Steeling himself with a long, drawn breath, he began.

It was a dance so deeply rehearsed his muscles knew every move on instinct. The kick snapped out in the air crispy, shifting his weight for a proper follow-up, Robin balanced on the balls of his feet and

(_and he was a boy again, kneeling on the batcave's floor of cold stone as his lungs squeezed out ragged breaths. Bats fluttered invisibly in the darkness as he stared up at the omnipotent Dark Knight, his mentor…_

"_Get up, little bird. This night isn't over yet."_

"_I-I…can't…" he had panted. "I'm too tired…"_

"_Not tired enough if you still have the breath to talk. Get up now, and you might make it to your bed at dawn."_

_He had only been twelve.) _

Raven meditated, Cyborg tooled in his garage, Starfire shopped at the mall, and Beast Boy played his video games. They had their own ways of escaping.

_(Two weeks crystallized into this one moment when Robin executed the last motions of the kata, his mentor had declared his technique 'perfect'. But his elation crashed on the rocks and sank into the deep when the Batman assigned him twenty _more _repetitions of the exact same session. _

"_But you said it was perfect!"_

"_Exactly," he replied in an infallible logic not to be questioned. "Practice doesn't make perfect. _Perfect _practice makes perfect. Now that you've finally done it right, I want you to do it perfect every single time until 'perfect' is carved into your bones. Understood?")_

Robin's empty stomach clawed at his insides, rebuking him for the breakfast he had skipped that morning. But hunger pains were more tolerable than being punched in the gut after a full meal- he knew that from experience.

Lunch came and went, and the Titan's dojo mat was still warm with Robin's passing feet as he continued battling the air, his fighter's mind imagining their shapes with perfect clarity.

_(The sonata of gunfire boomed endless echoes in the batcave's stone depths; Robin dove and weaved into the formation of men-shaped drones in an effort to throw off their motion sensors. Crouching low on the floor, he became a whirl of battering kicks as his hands walked him between the ponderous targets. Springing into the air, a final split-kick knocked over the last two targets-_

_Then he fell hard on the stone, clutching at his side where the rubber bullet caught him. _

_A towering darkness indistinguishable from the expanse of the cave, his Mentor crossed his arms and scowled. "You're dead.")_

"Friend Robin?"

There was a sensation like waking when Starfire's concerned voice broke his catatonia, his stance stumbled and his punches sloppy.

"Robin, you have been practicing for many hours," she said meekly. "Cyborg has cooked an assortment of dead animals and vegetable-burgers for dinner."

"I think I'll pass," he huffed gruffly, timing his words with the sharp exhales of his attacks. Punch, block, counter, punch, block, roundhouse kick, step…

He could hardly resist when Star's hand gently caught his arm. She could crumble a car with one good punch, and his muscles were useless strings of aches running through his body.

"You have had enough training today," she asserted with Tamaranean resolve. "Come now, you can rest at the table with us. Everyone is waiting."

Hooking her thin arm around his waist, Starfire half-carried Robin out of the dojo. He found himself in no state to disagree. The adrenaline and endorphins that had been feeding him most of the day were finally spent, it seemed. He was exhausted.

And the thought of everyone at the table; Cyborg and Beast Boy arguing over the vegetarian-unfriendly meal while Raven made a good show of ignoring them with another new book…

Suddenly, Robin forgot all about dark caves, hardships, and shadowy fathers. Letting Starfire lead him to the common room, he looked forward to dinner with his family.

* * *

**Spoilsport…**

Clearing his throat, Robin crossed his arms sternly. "Give it."

"Aw man…" Hanging his head low in something like a pout, Cyborg sighed and begrudgingly put his laser pointer in Robin's outstretched hand.

Nearby, a kitten with fuzzy green fur crouch low on its paws, warily sniffing the spot where the funny-dot-thingy had been.

"You _know_ that thing makes him crazy."

"I can't help it man! It's just too easy!"

Morphing back into his human shape, Beast Boy sat cross logged and scratched his head. "Hey, guys? Did any of you _see _anything just now? I coulda sworn…"

"No" they replied quickly.

* * *

**The Great Outdoors, Part II**

_(whatever happened to Part I? Go to GuardianSaiyoko's Whitewater)_

"…Remind me again why I am doing this."

Sitting across their campfire, Robin adjusted the smoldering logs with his staff. "Come on Raven," he chided. "You know you're enjoying yourself."

Hesitant as she was about Jinx and Kid Flash house-sitting the Tower for an entire weekend, Raven slowly beginning to appreciate the little vacation this camping trip had become. Sure, everything that could go wrong on a camping trip had happened; there was a persistent drizzle, they had to build a campfire from wet wood, the boy's tent flooded, their food consisted of Pop Tarts, Twinkies, chips, hot dogs, s'mores, and condiments (Starfire squeezed the mustard dry the first night), and….and….

Raven honestly found herself thinking this trip couldn't be anymore perfect.

"Great job on your tent, by the way," Raven smiled at Robin under her hood. With the boy's tent more livable from the outside, Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy were forced to cram themselves in with the girls and their miraculously dry tent.

Stiffening, Robin's staff poked absently at the fire. "That's what happens when Cyborg and Beast Boy are supposed to do something together…"

"If memory serves correctly, _you _were the one stuck building the tent after those two raced to the biggest tree they could find in the park (which Cyborg then tried to uproot to shake out the green squirrel chittering at him from the branches). Did Batman never teach your how to pitch a tent between birdarang throwing and quiet-loner training?"

Robin seemed too grateful a shuffling in the bushes just at the fringes of their campsite. He and Raven were the first ones up that morning, so it couldn't be the others…

Having unconsciously brought his staff to the ready, Robin relaxed when he spotted the golden retriever relieving itself behind a tangle of trees.

A _green _golden retriever.

"Ahem," Raven made herself known pointedly.

Yipping in surprise, Beast Boy's suddenly human head blushed at them as his hid behind a tree. "AHH! Can't a guy have some privacy?"

--------------------

"For the last time, Beast Boy: there is no such thing as the bat-pole!"

"Oh yeah? Then how do you get down to the batcave?"

"We have _stairs_."

"You mean bat-stairs."

"Thorn." Robin warned.

"Ow!" Beast Boy yelped.

Exploring the rough hiking trails winding through the deeper parts of the forest, the Titans had stumbled on a dried up riverbed that cut deep along the wooded hills. Wandering with no particular destination in mind, they followed the bed further up the hill, discovering a natural staircase the rushing water had carved from the solid rock.

Unfortunately, the riverbed skewed far off any official hiking trails, clogging their trek with fallen trees, thick overgrowth, and a generous helping of thorns. Using his staff like a vintage explorer, Robin led the way for his team- clearing off the more troublesome obstacles with a little help from Cyborg.

And yet Beast Boy _still _managed to jab himself with _every _thorn on the 'trail'.

Ducking between two gnarled trees that had collapsed across the empty river, Robin easily brushed past a tangle of thorns as Cyborg climbed over the logs and the girls simply flew over them.

"Thorn," Robin warned again.

The warning didn't help. "Ow!"

"I _said _'thorn'."

Meanwhile, Cyborg and Raven were continuing the same conversation they have had the entire camping trip.

"All I'm sayin' is that if we were all still normal, we'd probably be goin' to Prom right now."

"You mean if you boys were normal," Raven corrected him. "Star and I were _born_ like this. By our standards, we are normal."

"I guess you got a point," Cy conceded.

"Hey," Robin said defensively. "I'm comparatively normal."

"Yeah," the changeling snorted further down the dried-up river. "'Cause all kids are raised in caves by grown men in bat costumes. Sorry Rob, I had a weird childhood, but I never had my own bat-pole. Ow!"

"Oh right," Robin reminded himself. "Thorn."

"'Normal' is such a relative term anyway," Raven went on. "For me, the only thing 'normal' about Beast Boy is the fact he's green."

"Don't forget the ears. Chicks dig the ears."

She ignored him. "The things Beast Boy does on the other hand, like obsessing over mopeds or inviting a flock of sea turtles to our front door, that's not normal."

"Oh please," Beast Boy said. "If I just started acting 'normal', we'd all get so bored so fast we'd probably kill each other!"

"Meh. I still say Raven's gonna kill you anyways, grass-stain." Cyborg remarked. "It's kinda eventual."

"Please friends," Starfire spoke up politely. "Can we not discuss of the close comrades slaying one another? The _ser 'ak-tarr_ is not something taken lightly on my world."

"The see-ack-what?" Cyborg asked.

"It is a suicide pact between two lovers to restore lost honor."

Beast Boy sniggered. "Ooohh…rough luck there Rob…"

Bending a branch back with his gloved hand, Robin waited for the right time to let it go. "Hey, Beast Boy: thorn."

The satisfying thwack was followed by the usual…

"&#!"

Uh….expletive.

The entire team stopped to stare at shifter's…colorful tongue.

"What?" he said innocently. "We're in the _woods_."

----------------------

Cresting a steep hill on their way back to the campsite, the Titans overlooked a section of the forest preserve they hadn't spotted when they first arrived.

"Well whaddya know, BB?" Cyborg said. "Looks like we're not the only ones campin' here after all."

But to the changeling, what those people down there were doing was _not _camping. Marooned on the flattened grass like sprawling sea turtles on a beach were a caravan of campers and RVs glowing with warm light and electric comfort.

Beast Boy thrashed and snarled as Cyborg's bulky arms pinned him into a bear hug.

"Chill BB! It's not worth it!"

"Those buncha _cheaters! _We're out here freezing our butts off in the rain and they're eating microwave popcorn!"

"Do you think they have the mustard?" Starfire wondered hopefully. "Without mustard my 'Popped Tarts' are incomplete. Perhaps we can go and ask…"

"I can see through their windows! They're watching TV! _Satellite TV_! That is **NOT **camping!"

* * *

**Coulrophobia**

It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get Robin to go the Jump City Fair with them. Somehow, Raven knew that assuring Robin it wasn't a circus- more like an amusement park- helped him change his mind.

The others still weren't sure how she did that.

As the day went on, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Robin had hopped in line for almost every ride in the park- Cyborg being too large to fit and Raven outright refusing to ride ("Unless you want something exploding.")

But eventually, the five of them were content to simply wander about the park. Robin won starfire a giant teddy bear, Cyborg kept his first-place Hotdog Eating title, Raven threw a 120 mile per hour fastball (without even picking it up) and a green gorilla earned himself a big penguin doll after ringing bell in the strength test game.

"Uh…guys?" Robin warily. "Do you think we can avoid the Fun House?"

The rest of the team glanced across the way to the Fun House entrance. Children crowded the front for the performing clowns making balloon animals, hats, swords.

"Where I come from," Robin explained darkly. "Clowns aren't funny."

Moving on with a slightly grim air, Beast Boy stopped dead in his tracks, staring at something with bright, happy eyes. It took a moment for the Team to realize they had lost their green shifter; when they found him, he was ecstatic.

"DUDES! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

When they looked behind the changeling, everyone except Raven sported identical grins.

"Bump?" said Beast Boy.

"er?" replied Cyborg.

"Cars?" finished Robin.

Throwing up her arms merrily, Starfire shouted "Bumper cars!"

Raven had a bad feeling about this. "Oh no…"

* * *

**Things Beast Boy is NOT allowed to do:**

_Raven doesn't appreciate having you write on her door. Nevermind literature references._

"'Abandon all hope, you who enter here…' Very cute, Beast Boy."

_Stop trying to instigate a 'Cow Revolution'_

"Come on cows, viva la revolution! You can do it! Fight for your freedom!"

"Looks to me they're more interested in eating grass," Cyborg commented.

"USE YOUR FANGS!"

"…..cows have fangs?"

_You are not Cthulhu_

"_**Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"**_

"Yes, we're all very impressed you morphed tentacles onto your head. Now give me back my Lovecraft book."

_Stop going to petting zoos for the free food_

"Mamma! Mamma! I wanna feed the Llama!"

"Excuse me, sir?" the woman asked the keeper hesitantly. "Are Llamas supposed to be that…well…green?"

_Robin is not a ninja_

"Dude, seriously! You already have the kung-fu and the cool stuff. All you need is a scarf and a ninja-mask and you're set!"

"_No_, Beast Boy."

_Wrecking the R-Cycle _once _was enough_

"But I still have seven minutes left on her!"

"Think again, Beast Boy."

"Fine. I guess those photos of you and Cyborg are going to meet your adoring public after all…"

"If that happens, a video of you singing 'Man, I feel like a woman' in the shower might find its way onto the internet too."

"….touché."

_Dressing in a bathrobe and a shower cap does not make you Yoda._

"Is that _my _shower cap?"

"In this one, much anger I sense…"

'_Wicked' is not Raven's biography. _

Cyborg slowly leaned into Beast Boy's ear. "Dude, _run_."

_You are not that insurance duck_

Passersby on the street stared at the sign next to the lonely green duck. 'FIRED AFTER FREAK ACCIDENT TURNED ME GREEN.'

"Y'know," one onlooker said. "I'm pretty sure he could get sued for that…"

"Sued for what? He's a _duck_."

_You are not allowed on the internet. EVER. _

"I just got the strangest feeling of déjà vu…"

* * *

**For all you fans of Whitewater, I'm sure you recognize a few things. The Great Outdoors was a camping trip me and Saiyoko took with our friends instead of going to prom. Most everything written there actually transpired- the 'Thorn' game having no "OW" only pure F-bombs. **

**That dry riverbed certainly was interesting though. Sai just took the easy route and walked up a waterfall. **

**Yes, I know how that sounds. **

**Well, I hope you guys enjoyed my latest chapter, I worked pretty hard on it. As always, I like reviews. Feed the my writer's ego, please.  
**

**Thanks for Reading,**

** -Cy**


	7. 54, Actually

**God knows it's been years since I've even thought about it, Animorphs is the product of K.A. Applegate- not the poor Ghostwriter that actually wrote her books. ZING!**

_  
"If you think dogs can't count, try keeping three cookies in your pocket, and giving your dog only 2."_

**-Anonymous**

* * *

** Peaceful Predator**

Having prevented Cinderblock from crushing his establishment into an uninsured ruin, the restaurant owner insisted the Titans enjoy a free meal all to themselves with his personal thanks.

Robin enjoyed a prime steak with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables, their waitress raised an eyebrow when Starfire drowned her ice-cream sundae in mustard and hotsauce. Raven's fork methodically emptied her bowl of Indian rice; quite for the entire meal, Beast Boy just stared blankly down at his untouched salad plate.

Just across the table from him, Cyborg was working hard to make the owner regret the offer of a free meal. Barbecued prime rib, hot wings, a full plate of massive burgers…

_How can he eat so _much?

No one had ever really questioned the reasons for his vegetarian lifestyle. Oh, it was confusing to them at first; after all, he was _Beast Boy_, able to turn himself into a tiger, or a panther, a Tyrannosaurus, alligator, bear, lion- the most deadly predators in the world, and he liked veggies? No, 'Dude, I'm _been_ most of these animals!' always seemed to work- now his eating habits were normal.

It never occurred to anyone just how easy it would be.

Beast Boy's sensitive nose caught the smells of Cyborg's all-meat feast. He was ashamed when he caught himself staring. The glistening coat of barbecue sauce over the ribs…bones ridging beneath the meat...his gums tingled and his canines felt raw- stretching a mile long. Flesh cooked in a vat of its own grease and fat…that's what the burgers were. Its scent dug into his nose until the pure ecstasy of it sickened him.

The familiar smells wafted up old memories to the surface. Prowling through a jungle, stalking…hunting…the indescribably thrill of chase…the rewards of catching his prey: meat between his teeth, warm blood flavoring his tongue with copper…

He felt sick when he realized he was drooling.

Shutting his eyes, Beast Boy fell back on his time with Doom Patrol. He had _beaten_ his hunger dammit, controlled his instincts with a dedication he never even knew he had.

_I am NOT an animal, _he reminded himself as he ran through his old mantra. Sure, it wasn't as cool as Raven's, but it worked. _I am not an animal, I am not an animal, I am not an animal, iamnotananimal, iamnotananimal…_

"Cyborg," Raven asked. "Would you mind eating that pile of cholesterol you call a meal a little further away? It's making me nauseous."

Had it been BB, Cyborg would have laughed it off; just another battle in their eternal tofu/meat war. But Raven was still recovering from a nasty flu bug- the last thing they needed was Raven emptying her stomach during a nice dinner.

"Sure Rae, sorry." Cyborg nodded politely, taking his plate with him further down the table. Away from both Raven _and_ Beast Boy.

"Your salad's getting cold." Raven commented drearily, returning to her rice.

For just a second, the changeling could have sworn he saw a soft, sympathetic expression on the Empath's face. But no, he guessed it was nothing.

He still smiled gratefully at her. "Thanks."

* * *

_**E'n la sua volontade e nostra pace.**_

He was a man who had long since been dead. A thing without a heart, without flesh, muscle, nor blood. He but was bones moving only by sheer Will, a crumbling husk trapped in the armor he had burned in.

Now stripped of his power, Slade pulled himself out of the shallow pit of dirt Trigon had buried him in. Being without nerves, he felt no pain; only a weariness in what was left of his soul- the only thing that kept from finally crumbling into dust.

The Great Lord of Demons, Trigon the Terrible, had betrayed him.

Slade had expected this. After all, you don't make a deal with the Devil without having a little insurance first. So, he had plucked the magical ring from the burning ruins of Azar, it power had protected him when Trigon stabbed him in the back. Now it was wrapped around the bone of his finger, safe beneath his glove.

Wherever he was, the aging skeletons of a hundred different warriors lay frozen around him. Most of their weapons and armor were brittle and rusty, and even older swords jutted from the ground to serve as grave markers for even more dead. The remains of others like him, servants of Trigon discarded once their usefulness expired.

Now all that remained was getting to the surface. Knowing Raven, she made sure her friends survived his former-master's arrival on this plane. Loathe as Slade was to admit it, the Titans were integral to his plan.

Silent like blazing ghosts, dozens of Trigon's Fire Demons materialized around Slade, breaking his reverie. Despite being outnumbered and completely surrounded, Slade seemed entirely unconcerned. "Well now, that didn't take long at all, did it?" He said to them. "It would appear your Master isn't as foolish as I thought."

The fire-minions hissed hungrily at him.

Chuckling darkly, Slade calmly crossed his arms behind him back. "Come on," he urged them.

They lunged.

Beneath his mask, a skull grinned.

Kicking at the ground, an aged sword whirled up from the dirt and cut into the first demon mere feet from Slade. As the shredded fire faded and died, Slade caught the old sword in the air. Sidestepped into the throng, he wielded the blade easily with one hand. A handful more of the burning minions fell to pieces in seconds before the others bore down on him; without a break in his speed, Slade crouch low and swept his leg across the demon's vulnerable feet, pouncing back up with a flashing arc of the sword that neatly dissected an unlucky demon groin to crown.

But the old sword broke when Slade raised it to block a strike, so he wedged what remained of it into the chest of a demon, then deftly flipped onto the shoulders of another and crushed it beneath his weight. It was a rush of life he hadn't felt since Terra him in a volcano so long ago. His feet were bulldozers as he spun in the air, a defiance of gravity that cleared crowds of blazing figures with blows that could shatter boulders. He rolled beneath a flurry of fireballs without thinking, pulling another sword from the ground as he sprung to his feet and dispatched every demon that rose against him until it too broke under the strain.

His weapon more like an awkward dagger, Slade stabbed a demon in it fiery chest and punched the weapon straight through- catching the next two fire-minions down the line. Then he spied it- next to the remains of what might have been an ancient samurai warrior: a sheathed katana. Demon claws pressing at him from all sides, Slade's boot punted the sword up to him. An armored first curled around the pommel in mid-fall…

And the air sang.

With expert slices faster than the normal eye could see, Slade separated nine demons torsos from their feet. Sadly, the katana was not made to without the intense heat of so many beings of fire- the steel of the blade hand melted by the last stroke. Still, that did not prevent him from bludgeoning a demon's skull with its pommel. Elbowing a minion at his left and kicking aside another at his right, Slade stepped, twisted, and backhanded the last demon and sent it spinning to ground where it splashed against the sharp rocks.

All was silent but the dead. He was the last one standing.

Flexing his arms and neck experimentally, Slade loosened himself as his joints crackled and popped garishly. "Now then, where was I?"

Strolling with all the complacency of taking a relaxing walk through the woods, Slade waded through Hell with his eye set for the surface.

* * *

**Redundant**

To her credit, Raven didn't even bat an eye when Beast Boy popped up from behind the couch and flung himself on the cushions. "Hey Rae, I was just thinking…"

Levitating in her usual lotus position, Raven turned with page of her book without looking his way. "That's debatable, but go on."

To jab at his intelligence didn't phase the green shifter. Those kinds of exchanges were just part of their relationship. "If you could have any super power, what would it be?"

After a few moments of the question running amok in her head, Raven realized she had been reading the same sentence over and over again. She looked up at him. "You're kidding me, right?**  
**

* * *

**Stranger than Fiction**

He had to tell himself he was seeing things. It just didn't make sense otherwise.

There Beast Boy was, sitting comfortably on the couch surrounded by piles of paperback books. Beast Boy was _reading._ Reading _books_,for that matter.

"Uh…are you okay, Beast Boy?" Robin asked slowly.

Somehow, the little changeling hadn't heard him. Robin had to repeat himself several times before Beast Boy finally startled and glanced around the room before finally spotting Robin.

"Dude! I found these things in my closet! I like, completely forgot I had them!"

No. Clearly he wasn't imagining things. "What is all of this?" Robin said.

"Animorphs, dude! It was like, my favorite books when I was a kid!"

Robin blinked slowly. Several times. _Beast Boy _used to read works of fiction involving kids that could turn into animals. There was a joke somewhere in there, he just couldn't find it. "You've read all of these books? There must be dozens of them!"

"Fifty-four, actually. Not including _The Andalite's gift, In the Time of the Dinosaurs, Elfangor's Secret_…"

"Okay, okay," the Teen Wonder cut in. "I get the picture. But…Beast Boy…you actually _can _turn into animals? Doesn't that kind of…I don't know, dull some of the excitement?"

The shifter gasped as if Robin had spoken some terrible blasphemy. "Are you crazy? Animorphs is awesome! So who cares if I can turn into animals? They can only do it for _two hours_! Plus their morphing is slower, they hafta go from animal back to human if they wanna turn into another animal, they have a cool alien friend…"

"Starfire's an alien." Robin pointed out.

"Yeah, but I didn't know her when I was kid," Beast Boy snorted. "Plus, I even mailed the author to tell her she was screwing some things up. I mean, being an ant isn't _that _bad…"

Robin rose an eyebrow. "Let me get this straight: you wrote to the author of the Animorphs books to correct her on her bestseller books by explaining you _really could_ turn into animals?"

"Well…yeah."

"Did she believe you?"

"She believed me when a green-tailed-hawk knocked on her window."

* * *

**Trust a stranger…**

"Um…excuse me?" a small voice said.

Having been interrupted as she browsed the shelves of the bookstore's fantasy selection, Raven scowled as she regarded a little boy with short black hair, blue-jeans, and a T-shirt with something call 'Thomas the Tank engine' on it.

"What?" she said irritably.

He couldn't have been older than six or seven, shuffling nervously with his eyes glued to ground. "Y-you're a superhero…aren't you?" he stuttered.

"I prefer 'pro-bono civil servant', actually." She replied. Having worked up a little more courage, the boy stared up at her without saying another word. Impatient, Raven turned back to the shelf of books. _Bartimaeus,__Cast in Shadow, Elric of Melniboné, _and…what the heck was _Eragon_?

"I'm sorry…" the boy spoke up. "But…um…"

Exhaling a controlling breath, Raven looked back down at the little boy. "'But' what? Out with it already."

"I'm lost," he managed. "I don't know where my Mommy is."

Sighing, Raven rolled her eyes. _Just my luck. _"Fine, fine. Let's go find your mom." She felt the kid's elation mushroom as pulled out her book choices and made her way to the check-out counter with her new shadow right behind her. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked as she paid for her books.

"Anthony," was the cheerful answer.

"…I'm Raven."

"I know," Anthony smiled at her with missing teeth. "You're a Teen Tattin."

"_Titan,_" Raven corrected him sharply.

"That's what I said." He said stubbornly. Raven was vaguely reminded of a green pest she had back at the Tower. Growling, she reluctantly took the boy's hand and led him out of the bookstore into the mall proper.

It was a weekend, so the mall was more crowded than usual. Raven pulled the boy along between the flower river of people as she eased the hold on her senses.

"How come you dress so weird?" Anthony asked with childish curiosity.

"This is how we dress where I'm from," she said matter-of-factly. "Why are _you _dressed so weird?"

"I'm not dressed weird…" he whined defensively.

"You have a train with a face on your shirt. The only reason people aren't giving you worried looks is because you're six."

"_Six-and-a-half_." With much significance.

"This way," Raven abruptly pulled him to the side with a particular store in mind. It wasn't exactly subtle; with the frantic panic the woman was in, she might as well have been screaming at the top of her lungs. Thankfully, the panic deflated almost instantaneously when the woman spotted Raven and her son. Now the empathy was overwhelmed with titanic relief. "Anthony!"

"Mommy!"

Tearing free of her hand, little Anthony scurried into his mother's waiting arms. "Oh Anthony! Where have you _been_? I've been worried sick for an hour!"

Anthony buried his face into his mother's chest, almost in tears. "I'm sorry Mommy…I was looking at the toys in window and then you weren't there and then…"

She shushed him soothingly, ruffling her son's hair. "It's okay, it's okay. All that matter's is that I've found you, okay?"

Squirming out of the hug, Anthony was ecstatic when he remembered how he had found his mommy again. "Mom! Mom! I met a Raven!"

"Who?"

"Raven the superhero! I found her at the bookstore and she led me to you! She's right over there."

But the spot he had pointed out was empty- Raven had already gone.

------------------

"That was a most kind thing you did, Raven." Starfire told her.

Weighed down by their shopping bag, the Titan girls talked as they made their way out of the mall. "What was I supposed to do, shoo him away? I don't even understand why he came up to me in the first place."

"Perhaps this is true to human children as well," Starfire mused. "But it is in my experience that Tamaranean children somehow know who is kind; who is trustworthy. He came to you because you are you, friend Raven."

The dark girl bit her lip, her belly fluttering at old memories of three little children she had watched over. They had trusted her too. _Her_, Raven, the creepy one.

"Well, it's a good thing we found the kid's mom," Raven said. "We have enough kids at our tower as it is."

Starfire giggled at that. "Yes. No doubt the boys are competing in a tournament of video games."

"Let's just go home, Star."

* * *

**Peaceful Predator was my own idea why Beast Boy refused to eat meat. Deep, eh? Actually, the college food is so bad here I'M practically a vegetarian. Sorry if you guys didn't enjoy Slade's sudden arrival- I've just been aching for a little action ever since that story with Red-X. The title _E'n la sua volontade e nostra pace _means 'And in His will is our peace', a famous quote from Dante's Inferno. As for Redundant…well…how many times have _you_ had that conversation? **

**Compared with Saiyoko, I had a normal childhood. God, does anyone here remember Animorphs? Christ, I feel old. That's nostalgia for you. Again, reviews are always welcome. Feedback, constructive criticism, or maybe you just liked the story. Whatever, just feed the hungry writer please! **

**I'm helping Sai with the flood of suggestions for the Beast Boy list, so expect a new chapter maybe as soon as tomorrow. **

**Until next time, **

**-Cyrus**


	8. Because you're just that persistent

**Because you loony's nearly buried poor Saiyoko alive in your Beast Boy List suggestions, I'm helping her sort through all them and post them up with a little drabble to go with it. Mind you, these were the ones that didn't suck:**

"_But I want to ride a Basilisk _now_!"_  
-**Revan; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic**

* * *

**  
SithKnight-Galen's additions to the List:**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to speak with phone company representatives:_

"Hello? Why yes, we _are_ satisfied with a long distance service! What? Really? How are your guys' overseas charges, 'cause I got a few cute girls in Tokyo that're just dying to hear from me…"

_While green, Beast boy is not allowed to tell people he is a leprechaun and see if people can find his hidden pot of gold._

Sitting in the shade of her favorite tree in the park, Raven enjoyed the sight of another of Beast Boy's games blowing up in his face. A small mob of children chased the yelping shifter around the park, chanting something about 'Lucky Charms."

**WiccaGem18536's additions to the List:**

_Robin likes bubblegum as much as the next person. Just keep it out of his hairgel bottles. For real this time. _

A sleepy-eyed Robin blinked, not entirely comprehending why Cyborg was sniggering and Starfire was snorting with supressed giggles.

"Seriously Rob," the half-metal Titan chucked. "Your hair looks like a lollipop after someone left it on the floor for a month."

_Raven is not a pillow. _

Raven sighed with resignation at the snoring green boy resting his head on her lap. They'd all had a rough day; she'd let him sleep.

Then he'd pay for it in the morning.

_If you tell a fellow Titan that "You know where they live" EVER again, you're sleeping in the basement from then on._

Overshadowing him with his massive steel bulk, Cyborg grinned at Beast Boy with gleeful malice. "I know where you live too. And I happen to know you're a pretty heavy sleeper too."

A wide-eyed green kitten mewed helplessly back at him.

_Cyborg is not in a relationship with the toaster._

"I've got some bad news Cy: the toaster's being making someone else's toast. She's making _Robin's _toast, man. I am so sorry," sniffling, the changeling patted his metal buddy reassuringly on the back. "Be strong…"

_Robin is not gay. Deal with it._

"I'm not saying it again Beast Boy, it's an evidence room, _not _a Slade love-shrine!"

**  
Stars lil girl's additions to the List:**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to change into a fly, crawl under Raven's door and suddenly turn back into human form on her bed while she is at the climax of a horror novel. _

The warning alarms were blaring with grating insistence when Star, Robin, and Cyborg gathered cautiously at Raven's door. They had arrived just in time to see a smoldering Beast Boy stumble out of Raven's room.

"Are you harmed Friend?" Starfire gasped.

"Beast Boy, what was that explosion?" Robin asked.

"Dudes…whatever you do…don't sneak up on Rae…it backfires."

_Never around Starfire is Beast Boy allowed to use the term baby-making to describe Valentine's Day; Robin already has enough problems explaining things._

"Robin, I am most puzzled: How is it exactly these babies are made?"

Poor Starfire was even further confused after Robin sprayed out his coffee and stammered with a beet-red face.

**Lizai****'s additions to the list**:

_Beast Boy is not allowed to teach Starfire swear words and convince her that they're friendly greetings._

"What a wonderfully crap-tacular day friends!" she smiled cheerfully. "I hope you all enjoy damnation in the bloodiest of hells, assholes!"

"BEAST BOY!"

**Tari Silmarwen's additions to the List:**

_You are not a Jedi ._

"You don't need to see my identification…" Beast Boy assured the ticket vendor with a mystical wave of his hand.

"Sorry kid, you still have to be 18 to get into the movie."

"Don't make me destroy you!"

"NEXT!"

_The same goes for attempting to Force-choke Robin behind his back when he tells you to clean out the fridge. _

Clenching his face in furious concentration, a red-faced Beast Boy finally gave up with an exhausted exhale with nothing to show for it but a headache. "Hey Rae, did it ever occur to you to try Force-choking somebody?"

"Happens more often than you'd think, actually."

Catching only a snippet of the exchange, Robin turned around. "Wait…_what?_"

_You do not need a lightsaber._

Raven's hooded head shook as her hands radiated clean, healing blue magic. "Now, what have we learned about home-made lightsabers?"

_Nor do you need to randomly spout out quotes from any of the movies at any time, even if they appear to be relevant._

Beast Boy pulled out his hair in a terrified panic at the sight of a small army of Billy Numerous…es that had come out of nowhere. "IT'S A TRAP!"

_And finally, Beast Boy will never EVER take Raven's cloak and pretend to be a Jedi again._

Looking significantly underdressed in only her leotard, Raven walked into the living room and asked "Has anyone seem my cloak?"

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Fear me, for I am Darth Garvius, Lord of the Sith! The galaxy will fall to its knees beneath my awesome mastery of the Dark Si- aiiieee!" the hooded cloak made for someone significantly taller, Beast Boy tripped on its hem and crashed face-first onto the floor. "Ow…"

Raven rolled her eyes. "Way to go there, 'Darth'."


	9. Back in Black

"…_bad luck woman is a jinx and a worry too."_

-**Papa Charlie Jackson, **_**Salty Dog Blues**_

* * *

"**Walk Away"**

Huffing indignantly, Jinx slung her backpack over her shoulder and elbowed the diner's glass door. Its bell chimed pleasantly on her way out- just about the only pleasant thing in that damn place. She barely had enough time to sit herself at the counter before the owner refused to serve her and asked that she leave without any farce of civility.

"I don't want no meta-con around my customers," he practically spat.

"_Ex_-con," Jinx grumbled as she left.

So here she was again, fellow pedestrians giving a wide berth as she hoofed along Jump's sidewalks. Her black leather uniform packed away in her bag, Jinx wore comfortable black jeans, thick boots, and a fishnet poncho over a plain purple T-shirt. This was exactly why she hated the city: the noise, the exhaust from hundreds of cars stinging her nose, the people, the crowds, the people…

Okay, mostly the people.

In her time with the HIVE, Jinx and her partners in crime had robbed, vandalized, and pretty much terrorized Jump City countless times over. Even with her newfound status as an honorary Titan and an official pardon from the Governor, the city's citizens still had long memories. And bitter ones too. To make things worse, the rations the Titans gave her last week were just about out, she was low on money, had no idea where she would be staying that night, and Kid Flash had gone off to do whatever it was hyperactive speed-freaks like him do in their spare time.

If it weren't for her food situation, Jinx would be hours out of the city with a good horizon's worth of wilderness in every direction. If only she were that lucky. So drawn into herself as she watched her own feet chase each other down the sidewalk, Jinx nearly jumped with a crisp electronic voice taunted her from above.

"Well if it isn't the Raven-wannabe, free as a bird and poor as a stray. Oh how the mediocre have fallen."

Her new life of reform did nothing to lessen the bite of her scowl; Jinx addressed the skull-faced shadow perched cat-like on the streetlamp with distaste. "Oh. You."

X just chortled at Jinx's sour greeting. "Always nice to see you too, kid."

Though he was still very young in his criminal career, X had already developed somewhat of a legendary status in underworld circles. Ever since she heard of him, Jinx had always been curious about the bold thief who'd single-handedly tackled the Titans _and _gotten away with it.

Not that she was gonna admit that to _him_, of course. "What do you want?"

"I'd heard you've gone legit, decided to see it for myself. I'll bet your friends at the HIVE aren't real happy with your little career change though, eh?"

"They're not my friends," Jinx snapped. Downcast, she added. "At least not the kind that mattered."

A small part of her regretted that last sentence. See-More briefly came to mind.

_Well…maybe not _all_ of them…_

X snapped his gloved fingers. "Now _that's_ what I'm talking about, Precious. The last thing you need is a buncha hopeless losers like them holding you back."

"I'm with the Titans now."

The thief groaned painfully. "The _Titans?_ Geez…shake yourself of one batch of losers and get reeled in with another!"

"They're not so bad," Jinx defended. "They put in a good word for me with the governor; they even let me stay with them whenever I want."

"Stop kidding yourself darlin', it doesn't suit you. What do you think is gonna happen to you? Huh? The people here _hate _you, kid. They'll always think you're a con because that's exactly what you are. You're the Queen of Bad Luck, babe; everyone around you is gonna be miserable- there ain't no changing that. Now, if I were you, I'd look after _myself_ and screw everyone else. If bad luck's in your cards, why not make it bad luck for someone else? After all, one man's trouble is another man's gains."

Jinx's sharp purple eyes appraised the thief critically. "Is that how it is for you? Some twisted, narrow-minded narcissism?"

Red-X shrugged helplessly. "Hey, it's a living."

The petite sorceress shrugged up her bag and turned to leave. "Yeah well, have a nice life."

"Don't say I didn't warn you, kid!" X called out behind her. "Once a con, always a con. Nobody ever changes!"

Flicking her hand absently behind her, Jinx smirked wickedly to the sound of a collapsing streetlight and a surprised yelp. "Oohh…tough luck there, 'babe'."

* * *

"**Can't Find My Way Home"**

Starfire couldn't decide which earth-season she loved the most. Summer had its swimsuits, lemons of aid, trips to the beach, and- as friend Beast Boy insisted- the iced-cream. But then fall come with the bright leaves that left all the trees laughably naked and carpeted the ground so she could hear them crunch underfoot; or the free candy given away on the 'hallowed-ween' simply for dressing in silly garments (many friendly people had given her candy before she had even learned of that joyous tradition).

And _winter! _The time of Christmas and presents and happiness- she fondly remembered that long wonderful day when Robin bought her warm snuggly clothes so he could teach her to make angels in the snow and taste falling snowflakes on her tongue; and when Beast Boy and Cyborg then struck Robin in the face with a rolled up ball of compacted snow, Starfire then learned the joys of winter warfare in the building of snow fortresses and smashing car-sized snow boulders on friend Raven's head when she adamantly refused to join the snow-war.

It was springtime now, where all the snow had melted away and the birds that had left for the cold months returned to sing their much-missed songs of chirping. Hands clasped behind her, Starfire hummed as she floated lightly around Jump City's park. Raven had retired underneath the shade of a large tree so she could read peacefully and the boys were forming teams with the younger children so they could play a game of the foot ball.

The Princess of Tamaran was content to enjoy the bright rays on her sun-colored skin, taking a relaxing stroll (or…float?) around the park to admire the blooming flowers and lush grass…And was most puzzled to find a young man in dark clothes standing stiffly in the shade of a small tree. His skin was still a light cream tint from long months outlasting the winter indoors, but the way he avoided the sun's glare much like friend Raven hinted to her he most likely looked that way _all _the time.

His frame was much like Robin's, tall and thin- though obviously lacking the boy wonder's fitness. Even as Starfire approached him curiously, he made no indication he saw her; the eyes behind his square-rimmed spectacles were locked somewhere far ahead of him.

"Good afternoon," Starfire greeted him with a beaming smile. "Is this not a wonderful day?"

He didn't seem at all surprised an alien girl was speaking to him. The Titans were hardly considered unusual by most residents of the city by now. "Yeah," he agreed. "The weather's pretty nice today."

The way he seemed broken out of a reverie… "I apologized," she said. "Did I interrupt you in some way?"

"Not at all," he assured her politely. "I was just admiring the spring's cherry blossoms."

Tracing his haphazard gesture ahead of him, Starfire saw a tree she did not recognize; a short, slender tree with its wide umbrella of branches blossoming with tiny petals of red hued with soft pink.

"It's beautiful…" Starfire gasped.

"Oh, that's nothing. When I was a kid, we used to have a cherry tree planted on the front lawn of our ranch. It had been there since before we had moved in, and every spring like clock-work it would just explode with blossoms the softest pink you'd ever seen. I always loved seeing it bloom…it always made me feel so…_fresh_."

The alien girl caught his grim tone of regret. "What happened to it?"

"My family broke up." He explained. "My mother took me to live at my uncle's place here in the City. My father stayed at the house with my older sister."

Such a thing was so unfamiliar to Starfire. Ties of blood were powerful bonds on Tamaran, bonds not so easily broken by simple feuds or arguments. Even to this day, Starfire always hoped her sister Blackfire would forsake the crooked path she had chosen…it was a dim hope, but it was one Star could not find it in herself to let go. "Do you miss it? Your home with the cherry tree."

"Everyday," he replied with a sigh. A thought came to him, and he said "I once read somewhere that cherry blossoms are very important events in Japan."

Star smiled at that. She knew all about that place.

He went on. "Well, apparently the cherry blossoms are considered almost tragic over there. After they bloom, the petals' lifespans are very short."

"How short?"

"You see that tree over there? The blossoms will fall out in about a week, maybe a little more."

"I believe the Japanese are correct: that is quite sad…"

The boy shrugged "Oh well, life goes on. There's always next spring, right?"

Just as she was about to respond, a set of voices spoke up: "AAAARRIIII! Where'd you go, man?"

Starfire caught sight of two more teens a distance off. One was a short girl, bangs dyed white as her T-shirt declared _Dragons killed the dinosaurs._ The young man beside her was handsome- tall like Ari but well built; and the length of his hair almost rivaled Aqualad's!

Pointing, the boy said. "You see them over there? That's Ash and Zeke. They're my family now."

"ARI!" they called again.

Running his fingers through his messy hair, Ari adjusted his glasses and grinned. "It was nice talking with you, Starfire."

As her new friend sprinted across the park to rejoin his family, Starfire thought it time to return to her own.

* * *

"**Laugh, I Nearly Died"**

His eyes firmly shut, the toes of Robin's boots slowly edged the lip of the rooftop. The setting sun's weak, final rays warmed his face; ears brimmed with the slash of the surf so many stories below him as the wind played with his cape.

Taking in a steadying breath, Robin opened his eyes.

And fell.

At first, it felt much like the same: rushing air clogging his ears with its moans- running through his hair and wrapping around him like sky on a bird's wing. How many rooftops had he thrown himself off of? As absurd as it seemed, such a suicidal thing to a normal person was just so easy for him. It was in his blood, to fly through the air just to spite gravity and the ground it worked for. People gasped and screamed when he parents leapt from the safety of their ropes to the empty sky- but not him.

He was _born_ in the sky.

The ground was getting closer; the sharp island rocks jumped at him, the roar of the tide growing louder in his crowded ears. Years of training insisted he reach for his grapple-gun. But the secret, dreaming child in him won.

After all, the secret of flying was to throw yourself at the ground and _miss. _

Robin suddenly felt a cold chill swimming through his body- his bones shivered. The cold sensation condensed, thickening the air around him. Suddenly, the ground wasn't rushing eagerly to meet him: it was retreating. The pointed rocks shrank away as the cowed surf quieted. Spreading his arms out like a bird, Robin surrendered himself to a blissful joy he hadn't felt since he was a boy, before his parents- and his life- crashed into the ground.

He was _flying_.

Eventually, that familiar, alien sensation of his boots on firm ground returned as Robin found himself once again on the roof of Titan's Tower. The cold breath as comfortable as a shadow dissolved as Raven released her magic's hold on him. Greeting Robin with a sure-toothed grin, Beast Boy said, "Well, what did I tell ya, Rob! Isn't flying the greatest?"

"Trust me, Beast Boy," Robin smirked. "I've been flying a lot longer than that."

* * *

"**Can't fight this Feeling"**

Blinking awake slowly, Beast Boy pried his face from his drool-damp pillow and yawned with a wide mouthful of fangs. Stretching his body with a feline arch of his back, the changeling squinted at the clock sitting across the room and wondered why he was up so early.

I mean, it was _ten o'clock_.

Something tickled the back of his brain. Beast Boy didn't remember his dreams very often- most of them constituting an odd variety of things like the warm wind of the savanna on his fur or the lightless carefree sensation when thermals caught under his feathers and carried him high above heaven- but this was just frustrating.

What the _hell_ had he dreamed about again?

Like grasping for the simple word you _knew _just a second ago- grasping at those mocking little thoughts just at the very edge of your grip…

Beast Boy suddenly flushed. Transient memories of a fantasy that had seemed all too real at the time; just him and her alone in the Tower…that frame-hugging leotard…growling when her nails dug into her back as he kissed her-

Oh.

Suddenly very still, the shifter lifted up his comforter and looked at his sheets. And groaned. "Aw man…"

Trying to fight off the burning humiliation that had been a smoldering blush for the past half-hour, Beast Boy changed into his uniform and stole his way into the laundry room carrying his pajamas and bed sheets in a wide armload. Stuffing the incriminating evidence into the nearest washing machine, he let out a long held breath- relieved he had managed to avoid _major_ humiliation.

No such luck.

Hiding around a corner further down the hall, Robin and Cyborg watched their grass stain's private drama with knowing grins.

"Hey Rob, how much you wanna bet BB's little visit from the puberty fairy last night was about Raven?"

"Ten bucks," he decided after a moment's thought.

"I'll take that bet." Raven's monotone volunteered behind them.

Puzzling over exactly how much detergent he needed for the machine, Beast Boy jumped at the terrified screams howling down the hall.

* * *

"**Pictures of Me"**

Taking care to mark her page, Raven regarded the envelop Cyborg had set at her side. "And what is this, exactly?" she asked in the same tone she used whenever Beast Boy offered her tofu.

"Fanmail," Cyborg replied.

She stared at him hard. "Exactlywhat was it again I've told you to do with _any_ of my fanmail?"

"I was already on my way to the furnace, but then Star stopped me and said that you'd want this one."

Eager to get back to her book, Raven waved him off. "Fine. Whatever."

The half-metal Titan dismissed himself with a shrug.

Raven pretended to read until she was sure Cyborg left, then set her book down and studied the envelop. _Why exactly would Starfire think I'd want this._

Succumbing to her curiosity, the sorceress ran her finger along the envelope's sealed flap, casting a delicate spell that opened her mail without a noticeable mar on paper. _And people say my powers are only good for flying and throwing busses. _

Unfolding the single sheet of paper that was inside, Raven gawked with rare shock.

The illustration was terrible. More resembling a blue cone with a light-bulb shaped head and a jagged-lined scowl for a mouth, Raven's likeness held hands with a diminutive, smiling stick-figure that was unmistakably supposed to be a child. But most significant were the three words scrawled shabbily in crayon at the bottom of the page:

ANTHONY AND RAVEN

The furniture nearly detonated with her surprise when someone chucked behind Raven.

"Remarkable likeness," Robin commented, then continued on to the kitchen without another remark.

----------------

"Like I said," Raven said as she handed him the envelop. "My mail goes to the furnace, not me. Got it?"

"Yeah Rae, sorry." He nodded to her swiftly retreating back. The dark girl's cloak swished much like annoyed cat did with it tail. While he couldn't exactly feel what he was 'touching' with his metal hand, Cyborg didn't fail to note the oh-so subtle change in the envelope's weight since he gave it to Raven earlier.

Not that he was going to mention it to _her_, of course.

* * *

**Yes, I magically managed to actually write a Starfire-centric short story. Definately a first for me. **

**Less funny, a little more content in this chapter. My brain's overloading with Finals rolling in just a week; I've been so busy it literally took me forever to write this bloody thing. Once Finals are over I'll finally be heading back home- where cafeteria food is just a fading nightmare and computer access is just a reach away. Expect an update in about two weeks, give or take.**

**As usual, reviews are always appreciated.  
**

**Thanks for reading,**

**-Cy **

**  
****(The song titles used in this chapter belong to The James Gang, Blind Faith, The Rolling Stones, REO Speedwagon, and Vue, respectively.) **


	10. Scars

"_To be alive at all is to have scars."_

**-****John Steinbeck** **_The Winter of Our Discontent_**

* * *

**Scar Wars**

"Knifewound- Gotham City."

"Big deal! Check _this _out: mauled by a couple of Scissormen."

"Broken nose- tire iron to the face."

"Sucker. This was a love-bite from a black panther in Africa."

"I didn't want to have to show you this…"

"What…_is_ that?"

"Think of it as really bad freezer burn. Courtesy of Mr. Freeze's ice-gun."

If they weren't arguing like a pair of squabbling children, Raven would have found Robin and Beast Boy's testosterone-inspired contest a tad unsettling. What had started as a nostalgic reminiscence of their respective crime-fighting careers somehow dissolved into a boyish competition over the injuries they had sustained- and whose resulting collection of scars were 'cooler'.

By the time Raven had stumbled onto the scene, the boys' little game had been drawn out to the point where they were removing articles of clothing. Gloves came off to reveal faded puncture-marks from the fangs of an African Tree Snake or the calluses and thin white scratches from a lifetime of throwing batarangs. Boots that hid the crooked foot that hadn't quite healed right after being crushed by falling rubble or the other, more subtle injury that had damaged the nerve endings of the left foot- paralyzing the smallest three toes.

The dark girl's breath froze mid-heartbeat when the boys pulled off their shirts. Gunshot wound in the upper right arm, terrible claws raking over the muscles of a belly, hot bomb shrapnel in the shoulder, rough African foliage hardening his back, thousands of hours training underground shaping muscles strong and compact beneath skin that looked like it never saw the sun.

At least the scars didn't seem to affect Starfire, Raven noted. Unlike her, the Princess of Tamaran was more taken with the fact that there were young, muscular, shirtless boys in front of her.

Especially a shirtless_ Robin_.

Raven tried to cast the disquieting thoughts the boys'(_her boys)_ scars bred out of her head and found it wasn't as easy as ignoring say, Beast Boy's pranks or Robin's occasionally grating, no-nonsense 'Leader' mode. Having not even been noticed between Rob and BB's 'contest' and Starfire's…well…_gawking_, the sorceress quietly left the common-room to the safe recluse her room offered.

And tried so hard to forget the scars.

* * *

**Trial by Minutes**

10:09AM

DEFENSE: "Please state your name for the record."

ROBIN: "Robin."

DEFENSE: "Is that right? Do you really expect the Court to believe that's your real name?"

ROBIN: "My mother liked birds."

DEFENSE: "Permission to treat the witness as hostile, your honor."

JUDGE: "It's your funeral…"

QUESTION: "How, Mr. 'Robin', is the Court to believe testimony from a teenager using a ridiculous moniker and a mask?"

THE PEOPLE: "Objection, relevance?"

DEFENSE: "This witness's refusal to submit his real name or even his _face _is clearly in violation of my client's right to face his accuser."

THE PEOPLE: "_People v. __Sansweet_, your Honor, states that 'any unconventional citizens routinely performing civic duties for the greater safety of their fellow man are entitled to the same anonymity as undercover police officers in matters of civil or criminal law'."

DEFENSE: "Your Honor-

JUDGE: "The statute is quite clear, Counsel. No further references will be directed towards the witness's name or his state of dress. The mask stays _on_."

-Outburst from the galley-: "Woo-hoo! Score for the good guys!"

ROBIN: "Shut up, Beast Boy."

10:23AM

BALIFF: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

WITNESS "BEAST BOY": "Pal, I can only lie to Robin, pretty girls, and Raven."

JUDGE: "An 'I do' will be fine, son."

10:42AM

DEFENSE: "The Defense calls the Teen Titan known as 'Raven' to the stand."

-WITNESS MAKES HER WAY TO THE STAND-

BALIFF: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

RAVEN: "I do."

JUDGE: "Please be seated, Miss."

-DEFENSE COUNSEL APPROACHES THE STAND-

DEFENSE: "……"

DEFENSE: "The…uh…Defense has nothing further for this witness, your Honor."

JUDGE: "You are dismissed, Ma'am."

-WITNESS RAVEN UNRESPONDANT-

JUDGE: "Is something the matter?"

RAVEN: "No, it's just I was hoping I could scare that lawyer off faster than the last one."

* * *

**Yet even **_**more **_**things Beast Boy is not allowed to do:**

_Shapeshifting to win a game of charades is cheating_

"Flowers for Algernon!" Cyborg shouted at the little green mouse holding a dandelion.

…_unless you're paired with Starfire_

"Oh come on! 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest'! How could you not get that?"

_No one appreciates having a sea-otter lounging in the bathtub_

"Hey, grass-stain? I really don't think you need to crack open _peanuts _on your stomach to get them open."

_Charlotte's Web has been added to the Tower's List of Banned Movies_

It may have been immature, yes, but Raven found herself begrudgingly impressed by the massive spider web that had _somehow_ threaded across the whole length of the common room overnight.

Though she doubted a certain caped crusader appreciated the words 'Robin Luvs Slade' spun into the web.

"BEAST BOY!"

_Stop encouraging children to feed you scraps_

Giggling at the expectant wiggles of the ducky's tail, the little girl decided to give it another piece of bread.

_No playing 'Lost Puppy' at the park_

Beast Boy wondered why the cute blonde petting and hugging him close to her chest had stopped…until a cold hand grabbed him by the scruff and held him helplessly in the air.

"Oh _thank goodness_ you found him Miss," Raven's stolid voice said somewhere behind him. "He just keeps running off and making a fool of himself. Come along, Garfield, time to get you _fixed_."

The heavenly blonde that had held him close to her lovely…bosom frowned with confusion, bless her heart. "You named your dog Garfield?"

"Yes. It's a stupid name, isn't it?"

Beast Puppy whined in protest.

_Or 'Prince Charming', for that matter_

Raven wasn't sure which was worse: the crowned frog waiting on a park bench, or that the line of giggling girls was lengthening.

_We are not the Scooby Gang_

"Alright," Raven admitted. "I can understand your logic with Robin and Star being Fred and Daphne. But what in your right mind makes you think I'd be Velma?"

"Cause I think you'd look cute with glasses." Beast Boy replied foxily.

"Beast Boy," Raven said slowly, "you _do _realize Velma is probably a-"

But Cyborg cut in. "And how is it _I'm _the skinny white pot-head, exactly?"

"Uhh…default?"

_ Cyborg does not qualify as an Autobot _

"Dudes, think about it: Cyborg could _be _the T-car."

The changeling's brilliant idea was replied with three resounding "**No, **Beast Boy."

…and a lone "What a positively delightful idea!"

_Playing 'Phoenix Wright' is _not _good preparation for Court_

"OBJECTION!"

Having never tried a case that involved any of the Teen Titans, the bank robber's lawyer's mouth hung open mid-sentence dumbly.

The Judge, unfortunately, had the pleasure of Beast Boy in his courtroom before and tried to rub the familiar throbbing in his temples away. "Son, only Defense Counsel and District Attorneys can object to questioning. _Not _witnesses."

"Oh. Well…I object to that, then."

* * *

**Scar Wars (II)**

Fortunately (but not for Starfire), Cyborg had to cross through the common room to get to the refrigerator for his mid-afternoon foraging, the metal drumming of his feet abruptly stopping Beast Boy and Robin's contest before _pants_ became an issue.

It was quiet when the metal man entered- a tingling in one of his nonsynthetic guts had the strange feeling everything was very _not _quiet the moment before he entered. Pulling an armload of ingredients for a footlong sandwich out of the fridge, he raised an eyebrow at Rob and BB (_was it because they were staring at him or the whole 'shirtless' thing, _they wondered), then just shrugged it away as the Tower's usual weirdness and proceeded preparing his lunch.

Flattened by the most obvious of realizations, Beast Boy turned to Robin and pointed in Cyborg's direction. "Dude…I think he wins."

* * *

**When you're Evil**

Ironically, and not for the first time, he wondered what 'evil' really was.

Take the Brotherhood of Evil, for instance. How the hell does a talking gorilla and a brain in a talking blender qualify as evil? They went around _capturing_ the Teen Titans. If you were really evil- and _smart _(how dumb can a giant brain _be?_)- you'd go in for the kill. Quick, efficient, and no chance of your captive being rescued and getting your Brotherhood of Quasi-Evil's collective butts kicked by a gang of half-thawed teenagers.

Brotherhood of Evil?_ Puh-lease_.

Now, Red X knew he was a bad guy. He was a thief- a damn good one, but a still a thief. A thief who, unlike most villains, had no desire to take over the world. Realistically, world domination would take too much work. And when was the last time someone _actually_ managed to successfully conquered the earth? That's right: never. Morons.

So, was he really evil? In his entire career he's ever killed anybody; and it's not like the giant corporations or the obscenely wealthy he so artfully ripped off didn't have plenty to go around. You never heard about Red X stealing presents from an orphanage on Christmas Eve. That'd be just plain unsporting.

No, X was a man who made himself and his quality of life his top priority. Sure, he stole. But the treasure behind the big vault doors wasn't nearly as rewarding as the brilliant trick he had used to get the vault open in the first place. He also had a strict code of honor; one that found him fighting alongside the 'good guys' on one occasion or the other. Their first dance, with Doctor Chang? It wasn't heroics- it was Chang being the only source of Xenothium on the entire Western Seaboard. And sabotaging all the other competitors of that race while Robin made it to the finish line? Paying off a debt- because Red X was _never _in anyone's debt.

Plus, it was fun.

He had heard once people didn't choose evil because it was evil, but because he only mistakes it for his own happiness. So yeah, X supposed maybe he was just a _little_ evil.

So he sang, his fighting style adopting a more dance-like grace as he avoided the wild swings from Robin's bo-staff.

"_While there's children to make sad, While there's candy to be had_, _While there's pockets left to pick..."_

Sidestepping the boy blunder's blows, X ducked just in time to avoid a heavy punch from Cyborg- then rolled between the bulky Titans legs a planted a paper-thin X on the back of his calf. _"While there's grannies left to trip down the stairs,_" the song was mischievous and playful even through the electronic voice filters.

The circuits the X-gizmo scrambled turned Cyborg's leg into dead weight; and the cat burglar started up on the next line as he waltzed through a flurry of star-bolts impacting all around him. _"I'll be there, I'll be waiting 'round the corner/It's a game. I'm glad I'm in it, 'Cause there's one born every minute."_

A very large green gorilla changed shaped into a charging African Elephant. X took it all in stride and tossed a rubber ball which popped over the elephant's head and covered its face with gummy red goo.

"_And it's so easy when you're evil. This is the life, you see, The Devil tips his hat to me_," speaking of the devil, a dark hooded girl phased like a hellish ghost up from the floor. Her eyes glowed a phantasmal white as she began her incantation. Until a red X clapped over her mouth like flypaper.

And he laughed._"I do it all because I'm evil, And I do it all for free- Your tears are all the pay I'll ever need!"_

The cute orange girl as tougher to avoid. She flew fast and was smart enough to stay of his range. It took some considerable effort to dodge the thick shower of green bolts she hurled at him relentlessly. When X found himself with his back to a wall, he knew she had been herding him with those blasts. Now, he was cornered.

Clever girl. But he still had a trick left. To the glowing eyed alien-princess, X sang the last lines with a lonely kind of somber. _"It gets so lonely being evil, What I'd do to see a smile, Even for a little while…"_

The green balls of energy in her fist lost some of their intensity, so X pressed on and took a tired step towards her. "_And no one loves you when you're evil_…" Starfire's warrior-mask actually softened as he tentatively reached out to cup her face.

Then the smoke bomb when off.

"_I'm lying through my teeth!_" Red X laughed. Diving out of the smoke, he gave the recovering Titans a mocking salute and finished _"Your tears are all the company I need!"_

His dark from flickered like a mirage as he teleported himself away.

Robin was furious, Starfire coughed up smoke, Cyborg dragged along a limp leg, and Raven was just managing to pull the adhesive X from her mouth. "Well," she said. "_That _could've gone better."

And they all turned to stab angry glares as Beast Boy hummed the song Red X had been singing as he made fools of them.

Fussing with the goo stuck to his face, it took the changeling time to notice his teammates smoldering stares. "What? It's catchy…"

* * *

**The song used in the above story is Voltaire's 'When you're Evil'. Not only is it_ that_ catchy, once you hear it, you'll know why I think Red X would sing it. **

**Yes, I do realize it has been an ungodly long time since my last update. Blame college. Please. Just not me. The fact that I still got a copious supply of reviews and favorites even in my long absence tells me that I don't deserve fans as patient and dedicated as you are. So in my thanks (and because it's funny as hell), I have a bonus drabble right here: **

* * *

**O-MA-KE**

**-From Scar Wars-**

**  
**Shirtless, scarred, and still occupied with their contest, Beast Boy and Robin never noticed when Raven entered or left. Nor did they seem to notice Starfire's dreamy sighs.

They did however, notice when the Princess blurted "Please commence with the kissing!"

* * *

**Fangirls, commence your squealing. **

**Great to be writing again,**

**-Cy **


	11. Pasts: Part I

_Each had his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart; _  
_and his friends could only read the title._

**-Jacob's Room, by Virginia Woolf

* * *

**

"**Old Wounds"**

There were several disadvantages to being the child of a police officer. Every day, their jobs made them witness to every worse case scenario a parent can imagine. They saw first hand what could happen to a woman who lived alone, to a girl who went to party, or even how simply walking home could turn ugly, fast.

These reasons made it difficult to be a young woman who just wanted to scout some prospective colleges cross-country, so she wasn't very surprised when her cell started playing the theme song to _Cops_ as she got off the elevator to her hotel room (she had chosen it for the entertainment value, since her father _despised_ the show). It was, however, annoying having to cradle her phone between her ear and shoulder while juggling her purse and bag of groceries trying to get to her room key.

"I'm just getting back into my room now, Daddy. I went shopping for some snacks… Because I get hungry at night and I don't want to pay eight bucks for a bag of peanuts. No, it's not late; you're forgetting the time difference." As she fumbled trying to slide the card key in, she considered it lucky she was at a hotel that didn't use old-school keys. Trying to turn a lock with her hands full _and _convince her father to not fly across the country dragging half the police force with him didn't sound too appealing.

"And while we're at it, what are _you _doing up at four A.M. anyway?" she demanded, taking on the role her mother vacated after the divorce. "I swear, that man's a bad influence on you….The man you page with that spotlight on your roof, stop playing dumb." She sighed heavily, exasperated. Fortunately, she managed to shoulder the door open and make it to her room. Too lazy to drop what she's carrying and turn on the lights, she decided to navigate through the dark and place her groceries, purse, and backpack onto the table near the bed.

"I mean it, you're getting too old to be intravenously fed coffee- it's not healthy." Why was the room so cold? She traced to culprit to the flapping curtains; someone had left the window open. "If you don't I'll call Ms. Montoya and she'll _make_ you, she doesn't care you outrank her. You _know_ I would, Dad. Yes, I'm meeting with Becky for breakfast and then she'll show me around campus." Shutting the window and locking it, she stood in the dark trying to finish the conversation. "I know Daddy. You know I do. I know…yes, I promise to call tomorrow night…fine, after I'm done at the school. Promise me you'll get some sleep…because you're no use to anyone sleep deprived. Okay, I love you too Daddy, 'night."

Feeling like she had just finished a marathon, she shut her phone and tossed it on the bed. An old nervous tick compelled her to tuck her long red hair behind her ears before walking to the mirror hanging over the dresser. Feeling the need for light, she flicked on the nearby lamp.

A normal woman would have screamed at seeing a dark figure suddenly standing behind them in the mirror. Barbara Gordon however, is not a normal woman, and seemed to find the intruder that had appeared from nowhere as a simple annoyance. "Didn't anyone ever teach you it's rude to sneak into a girl's room without her permission?"

Arms crossed, Robin glared at her poker-faced. "You didn't tell me you were in town," he said evenly, still making it sound like an accusation.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't under the impression I had to tell _you_ anything." Brushing past the boy wrapped in a black cape, she grabbed her groceries and started stocking her fridge, feeling his eyes follow her from behind his mask's opaque lenses. "How'd you even know I was in town, anyway? Wait- don't tell me! The butler…in the library…with the cordless phone."

His hands produced something from beneath his cape that caught her eyes; it was the first time since he'd arrived that she'd actually looked directly at him. He was holding a flat metal blade aerodynamically cut into the shape of a nocturnal animal with pointy ears. "I found this tied to a burglar who had been interrupted in the middle of robbing a jewelry store."

Barbara looked at the oddly-shaped throwing star thoughtfully. "Hmm…it looks like some bat-themed costumed adventurer went and did you a favor. You should really find this brave, selfless hero and thank him."

"Or her," Robin added candidly.

"That's quite progressive of you, Richard."

"Don't call me that," Robin said between clenched teeth.

"Sorry, _Dick_." She said, hiding her satisfied smirk.

"What are you even doing here?"

"You weren't listening in? I'm here scouting colleges."

He held up the batarang. "This would disagree."

"A little midnight constitution," she said dismissively. "Gotta keep in shape."

"Join a gym."

Fuming, Barbara confronted the Titan and prodded his chest. "Y'know, maybe we should be talking about what _you're_ doing here."

"You're operating in _my_ city," Robin scowled.

"Didn't see your name on it."

"Check the harbor, look for a big 'T'. Can't miss it."

"Do you want to know what I think is really sad, Dick? You don't return _one_ call from me for years but all I have to do is leave one batarang lying around and you come running!"

Robin contritely took a step back, suddenly not wanting to meet her eyes. "I wasn't trying to avoid you Barbara…"

"Well you certainly did a good job without even trying."

"I'm sorry Babs…but I had to get away from Gotham…away from _him_."

"Look me in the eye and tell me part of the reason you left wasn't because of us."

"Some of it was because of that," he admitted ruefully. "We'd already agreed we couldn't be…what we tried to be and I just…"

"We were partners, Dick! We fought and bled together! Just because it didn't work out between us didn't mean we still couldn't…"

"We needed distance," he asserted sternly. "There couldn't be any closure when we tried avoiding each other during the day but ended up worked together every night."

"You say all of that now even though you're involved with someone from your team?"

Surprised, he blurts, "what?"

"You're a lot more public than you were in Gotham, Robin. There's a lot of talk about what's going on between you and that Starfire girl."

"I always thought you never paid attention to the tabloids."

"Normally I don't, but I happen to know from experience that you have a thing for redheads," she clipped.

The silence between them was long and awkward. Barbara turned her back to him and crossed her arms, hugging herself. "So…is it serious?"

"Are you asking as a friend," Robin said carefully. "…or as my ex?"

"Can't it be both?"

"No."

She sighed, suddenly feeling very tired. "My flight leaves the morning after tomorrow. I'll keep the cape in the bag, if it's that important to you." She turned around to face him. "But don't think that gets you off the hook, Richard Gra-"

And finds that she was talking to an open window and fluttering curtains.

"Son of a…" she stuck her head outside and screamed into the howling night. "You know, you two are more alike than either of you are willing admit!"

* * *

"**The Deadly Replay"**

They came to him torn and distorted at first; full of static and snow like bad television reception. He remembered school, the stadium, illuminated and displayed by the floodlights towering into the starless black of the night sky.

The rush that was a narcotic sense of speed, power- the invincibility so many young men have before life teaches them different- knowing the small army of defensive linemen rushing at his back could do absolutely nothing to stop him as he crossed into the end zone. The wild tenor of hundreds cheering shook his ribs like the rumbling of thunder after he slammed the ball to the ground and raised his arms high as though he were bathing in it…

"Touchdown!" the voice from the loudspeakers exulted. "Another spectacular run from number twenty-six: a whopping _sixty yards_!"

He remembered the electric blue '69 Plymouth he spent two years restoring from a pile of scrap. It wasn't easy to forget the hours Marcy and he spent fooling around in the back seat.

He remembered STAR Labs; his parents had been working on a very hushed project for years, and his father was set on showing him there were better things in life than cars or sports and it was about time he settled down and focused on his studies and got his arms into a lab coat.

Elinore, his mother, just smiled with that sagely wisdom all mothers seemed to have when it came to their children. She had no mind to tell him what to do with his life, and was just ecstatic to show her son the groundbreaking new device she had built with her husband: the Dimensional Transmitter.

"This is what science is all about, Corky," she said, ignoring his groan at the childhood nickname. "Bringing imagination to life and turning science fiction into _real _science."

Much as he didn't want to admit it to his father, Vic was just as excited as the test began. The Dimensional Transmitter was supposed to be a window to glimpse through and study alternate realms of existence.

"Uh…ma'am? I'm detecting a microwave burst at singularity's ergosphere."

It ended up being a doorway.

"Proximity alarm! Unknown matter emerging from the event horizon!"

"We're losing containment!"

He couldn't remember the thing that crawled out- or what exactly had happened to him. All he had to go on were the nightmares. A gelatinous mass of protoplasm- a thousand eyes and mouths and faces boiling, squirming melting, popping into and out of existence all at once. The tentacle-like organelles lashed out at anyone close by, trapping them within it like insects struggling in sap.

To say they melted is a comforting understatement.

He remembered when he regained consciousness in the hospital, he remembered thinking how _loud _the room was as he heard the drip of his IV and could clearly make out the conversation the nurses were having down the hall. And he remembered the confusion when he first opened his eye to a soulless digital severity. He wasn't _seeing _the room- he was being told by a computer what it looked look. It was like instead of being shown a painting, he was fed data and statistics. Seeing the chemical analyses of dyes instead of colors, to have each individual brushstroke clinically cataloged instead of just seeing the whole picture.

If the doctors hadn't unwrapped his human eye from the gauze, he probably would have gone insane.

He remembered the horror of seeing what his father had done to him. His body had been mutilated and substituted with a skeleton of metal strangled by an untraceable tangle of wires. He could watch the clockwork parts click and turn at just a thought to flex the claw-like prosthesis that was his arm and tried to wrap his brain around the fact that he _couldn't feel it_.

To this day, he still remembered what he spat and raved at his father when he visited.

"_Why couldn't you just let me _die?_!"_

He remembered the rehab, months and months of pain from his damaged nerve endings as he tried to relearn…_everything_. Walking, eating, hearing without overwhelming himself or handling a glass of water without breaking it with a hand he couldn't even feel.

He remembered when he finally came home to the apartment he shared with Marcy, trying to restore some semblance of normalcy back into his life. But he didn't need a cybernetic eye to see she was avoiding him, that she winced whenever he tried to touch her- and who could blame her? How can someone be intimate with a body of cold metal? How can you hold a rigid, unfeeling hand that could crush the bones of your fingers into a fine powder of calcium?

And he remembered how unsurprised he was when she left him; the engagement ring hit the hardwood floor like a bomb.

A bomb?

_Oh right, now I remember._

Cold War relic or no, he hadn't expected one of the bank robbers to have a Rocket Propelled Grenade. Sure, it was a tad low tech, but that didn't seem to stop it from blowing him clear through a wall.

The flickering static cleared when his emergency subroutines kicked in and informed him he had been idle for 17.361 seconds. Apparently 'idle' was what his systems decided to categorize being dazed after being shot by a _freaking rocket launcher_. Cyborg wondered when the ringing in his ears would stop, and then remembered his ears couldn't ring because they weren't organic anymore- so he mentally shut off the priority warning alarm blaring inside his head.

_Computer,_ he ordered with a thought,_ damage assessment._

ARMOR INTEGRETY AT 76.4 PERCENT [cause:TARGET-04 W/ RPG-7V2 (see:**GRAU 6G3**) TYPE OG-7V ANTI-PERSONNEL WARHEAD]

NEURAL CONNECTIONS L-81 THROUGH 313 UNEXPECTEDLY SEVERED. FAILURE TO ESTABLISH WIRELESS LINK-UP.

One great thing about being a cyborg: when you find that your left arm is gone and you have no idea where it is, it's more of an annoyance than a life-threatening concern.

_Well that sucks. _

Shrugging the rubble off of his shoulders like it was a layer of snow, Cyborg rose from his knees and flexed the fingers of his right hand experimentally. Everything seemed in working order.

Thermal sensors were fragged, but biometrics and motion sensors calmly notified him he was not alone.

**WARNING:** TARGET 02 [168.311 DEGREES/distance: 12.792m] AND TARGET 03 [143.123 DEGREES/distance: 12.312m] APPROACHING. DEFENSIVE ACTION RECOMMENDED.

_Gee, ya think? _

Cyborg may be three-hundred eighty-five pounds of neural circuits, synthetic organs, and depleted promethium armor, but he can move silently and keep a low profile when he needed to. Setting his servos to 'STEATH MODE: ULTRA-QUIET', the metal man's feet navigated the rubble without upsetting a single pebble and knelt near the hole he had made when he 'entered'. Robin would have been impressed.

"Holy crap, man," one of the robbers whistled as they approached. Adjusting his ears with thoughtless instinct, Cyborg could easily hear the pair's approach. He could even tell from his breathing the man in the lead smoked about a pack a day.

"Adrian's rocket did all this?"

"Yeah, did you _see_ that? Blew that half-metal freak through the damn wall."

Their combat boots crunched noisily as they walked into the building, guns raised cautiously in a search pattern. His systems immediately identified and evaluated their weapons.

TARGET 01 ARMAMENT: HECKLER AND KOCH MP5KA4 (magazine:30 RNDS, cal:9x19mm PARA, effective range:25-100M, w:2.54KG, l: 368mm) THREAT LEVEL: 2

TARGET 02 ARMAMENT: ISREALI MILITARY INDUSTRIES GALIL A.R.M. (magazine: 50RND BOX, cal: 5.56x45mm NATO, effective range: 300-500M, w:4.35KG, l: 742mm) THREAT LEVEL: 3

The one carrying the sub-machine gun cautiously approached the pile of rocks as if he expected them to come to life and pounce on him. "You think he's dead?"

"Not yet," Cyborg said behind them.

The startled robber immediately wheeled around and fired his gun at Cyborg in a terrified panic that was fairly understandable for anyone facing one-armed, six foot six armored man that looked decidedly pissed off.

At nine-hundred rounds a minute, the SMG clicked empty in two seconds. He almost felt sorry for the guy. "Yeah, I could have told ya that wouldn't work."

Making sure to do as little permanent damage as possible, Cyborg backhanded the gobsmacked gunman and sent him flying into a comfy cushion of rocks.

The second guy opened up with his heavy assault rifle and flooded the room with light and thunder. He might as well have been shooting tennis balls with how nonchalantly Cyborg strode up to him.

He stood scant feet from the gunman and patiently waited for the Galil to run dry. Depleted promethium made tank armor look like cheap sheet metal, and Vic made sure his magnetic dampeners prevented the bullets from ricocheting and hurting someone.

Finally, as the rifle's firing pin struck feebly for a non-existent bullet, Cyborg asked him, "Are we done now?"

He caught the rifle's stock in his unyielding hand when the robber tried to bash him with it. Yanking it away from him like a chastising parent, Cyborg clenched his fist and crushed the gun as if it were a can of soda and dropped it at its owner's feet.

"_Now_ are you done?"

The robber nodded vigorously.

"Good," Cyborg smiled, then punched the man in the face. It wasn't even that hard; a love tap, really.

_Oh well, it'll take an hour or two for him to wake up. _

A little worse for wear and still minus an arm, Cyborg climbed out of the hole in wall back onto the deserted street. All the civilians had run for their lives when the shooting started.

A guy in black military fatigues he probably bought at a surplus store was standing in the middle of the road. He had loaded his RPG with a fresh rocket and was already taking aim.

TARGET 03 ARMAMENT: RPG-7V2 (40mm SELF-DETONATING OG-7V ANTI-PERSONNEL WARHEAD, effective range: 1000yrd, w: 7KG, l: 950mm) **THREAT LEVEL: 5**

"Came back for seconds, huh freak? Well eat this!"

Cyborg had been evacuating civilians from the block when the first shot caught him unawares. This time, face to face, he calculated the speed and trajectory of the rocket in the span of a few milliseconds.

As he watched the warhead spend the last of its fuel struggling to escape his grip, Vic had to laugh to himself.

It was almost like catching a football.

Setting the inert but still dangerous rocket-grenade on one of the city trash cans, Cyborg settled his sights on the shooter, who was still gaping at him dumbly.

"My turn."

He set his sonic cannon to fire at a low-intensity; about the force of a kick from an angry mountain goat. It was still enough to send him flying into the side of a car, denting the door.

"Payback, sucker," Cyborg gloated. Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute…weren't there more of you guys?"

Someone whimpered. Cannon raised, he wheeled around and faced a man wearing a ski mask using a woman as a shield. He was holding a pistol to her head.

"Oh, there you are."

"Back off, Robocop," ski-mask robber said. He pressed the muzzle of the gun a little harder into the woman's cheek. "Or we have some collateral damage."

TARGET 04 ARMAMENT: BERETTA 92FS (magaz-

_Oh, shut the hell up!_

Cyborg slowly lowered his arm and reconfigures the sonic cannon back into the shape of a hand. "What do you think is gonna happen here, man? Just drop the gun and let her go."

"How about you shut the hell up and_ back off!_ I'm not playing here!"

WIRELESS CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. INPUT COMMAND:

Vic looked into the woman's eyes- blue and wide like a helpless animal caught in a trap. Maybe it was her face, or maybe the way she wore her hair, but she looked so much like Marcy.

"Alright man, whatever you say," he agreed, taking a few steps back with a placating gesture. He just needed to stall for time.

The gunman nodded, reassured with his own power. "That's right, I'm calling the shots here! Now, you're going to stay right where you are and me and the hostage-lady drive away in one of these cars, got it?"

"You're not taking her anywhere." It wasn't a threat or some tough guy defiance. He could have told the guy in the exact same tone that he couldn't leave on account of bad weather.

Mr. Bank Robber didn't seem to appreciate the news, though. "Who's gonna stop me freak, _you_?"

"Yeah. With one hand ."

At first the robber looked furious, then cocked his head as if he were confused. Two seconds the later he collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Told ya."

Suddenly free of her captor's grip, the woman scrambled away from the unconscious man and started sobbing with relief. She squealed though, when she noticed the disembodied robotic arm walking on its fingers like a metal spider.

"Sorry about that," Cyborg told her. "Had to give ol' lefty time to sneak up on the guy." He tried to ignore the disturbed look she was giving him when he picked up his arm and re-inserted it into his shoulder. There was a sharp pain when the circuits linked with the nerves that made him wince.

Looking down warily at her would-be-kidnapper, she asked, "What…what did you do to him?"

Busy checking his arm for damage while the diagnostic ran, Cyborg absently opened the tip of his ring finger to show her the small needle hiding there. "Drugged him with a fast-acting neurotoxin that temporally disrupts voluntary nerve impulses. The only thing he's going to be able to do for the next hour is breathe and blink."

The woman perked her head to the distant sounds of police sirens. Cyborg was already filtering their radio chatter to keep his head quiet.

Police cars poured into the street from every direction, lights spinning and sirens wailing. Two huge black SWAT vans screeched to a stop and deposited over two dozen men in body armor wielding assault rifles.

"Police, nobody move!"

Cyborg pointed at the hole he had climbed through. "Two more suspects in there, guys. Oh, and you might want to call a bomb-disposal unit; there's an undetonated RPG in that garbage can."

The SWAT teams, faces hidden beneath balaclavas, actually paused and exchanged puzzled glances before shrugging. They were used to the Titans by now.

"You heard the man, step it up!"

Cyborg managed to pull one aside while the rest were busy patting down and arresting the disabled gunman. "Sorry man, but could you get this civilian out of here? One of the perps tried to take her as a hostage."

The officer looked at the woman and nodded. "No problem sir. Come this way, miss. We'll take your statement and get you home."

The woman nodded and allowed the policeman to lead her to the perimeter, but suddenly she stopped, said something, and ran back to Cyborg. Before he realized what was happening, she had wrapped her arms around him.

"Thank you," she whispered. Cyborg couldn't even respond when she pulled away, gave him a grateful look, and hurried back to the waiting officer.

She actually touched him. He couldn't remember the last time anyone outside of the Titans could actually tolerate looking at him, nevermind _hugging _him.

"Cyborg!"

The rest of the team had made it past the perimeter and were rushing towards him with concerned looks on their faces.

"Dude," Beast Boy gaped, "What happened?"

"It looks like a war zone around here, Cy," Robin said.

"Are you injured, friend?" Star asked, crowding him.

Raven was quiet, and hung back behind the group looking stoic.

"I'm fine guys, just ran into some escaping bank robbers by sheer dumb luck."

"No friend, this luck was not foolish at all," Starfire insisted. "It is fortunate no one was harmed!"

Raven spoke up quietly. "Are you sure you're alright, Cyborg?"

Cyborg looked at them, then lifted his battered left arm and flexed his fingers, marveling how fluidly they responded to his thoughts.

_I still can't feel anything…_

"Yeah," he said distantly. "Nothing that can't be fixed."

* * *

**Progeny: Part I**

Instead of waking, it would be more accurate to say Rosalyn Worth stopped sleeping.

Still wandering in a haze of half-sleep and fading dreams, eight year old Rose obeyed an unexplainable compulsion to leave her bed and look for something.

Most of the time Rose had dreams like everyone else had, but sometimes Rose had strange dreams. After she had these dreams, Rose would feel…weird. She would go through her day like normal, but she couldn't help feel like she had done it before, like when she watched reruns of her favorite shows. Her mom had a funny word for it that Rose didn't remember.

There was one dream Rose had that still scared her. All she remembered from it was that something bad happened to her best friend Jessica, and all day Rose watched her friend waiting and dreading. Later, when she got home from school, Jessica called her crying because her dog had been hit by a car.

Her mother told her to keep these dreams a secret, and so she did.

The apartment was dark when Rose left her room. She was always scared when she went to the bathroom or got a glass of water at night, and suddenly she didn't understand why she was standing in the hallway in her nightgown, alone and in the dark.

She froze when she saw something at the end of the hall. It looked like a shadow without a person, like when Peter Pan's got away. It didn't make a noise when it walked towards her, Rose still didn't move a muscle.

When it looked down at her Rose realized it was a man, the biggest man she had ever seen. The size of him seemed to surround and crush her; she looked up at him feeling as powerless as she did when the monsters cornered her in her bad dreams.

"Momma?" she cried out weakly.

The man leaned towards her, and Rose saw he had only one eye. "I'm afraid not, my dear."

* * *

**I was appalled to find after checking my account that I had not updated Five Stories in over **_**two years**_**. At this point, any anger from being so long neglected has most likely faded into a puzzled "What ever happened to that guy, anyway?" I can name numerous reasons for why I, for all intents and purposes, abandoned you guys: college, writer's block, money problems, personal issues, family concerns. For a long time my writing has been an uninspired chore, and if there is one sin worse that writing nothing it is writing something for the satisfaction of others over oneself. If it weren't for the periodic reviews and story alert notifications, I might not have been driven to write this at all, so I have you to thank at least. **

**As some may have noticed, there are in fact only three stories in this chapter. The other three are pretty much complete. I just felt they would be far too long to read in one sitting. In my long absence I have ideas for several more chapters ready, many of which have been written in some capacity or another and simply haven't been finished. Expect the next chapter (completing these) to be posted within a few days. Should my muse hold up for the holiday, more will be arriving soon. **

**Returned from the grave, **

**-Shinobicyrus**

**P.S. Thanks for reading!**


	12. Pasts: Part II

"…_for events are as much the parents of the future as they were the children of the past."_

–**John Galsworthy, **_**Saint's Progress**_

**Progeny: Part II**

Rose had sworn to herself with stubborn determination that she would not cry.

She was in an unfamiliar place. It was darker than her room at night; she couldn't see past the faint shapes of cluttered gears diligently spinning out loud, distant echoes into the deaf black. Above her, dim bulb caged in wire cast a circle of light on the cold floor she was huddled on. In her child's imagination she saw the depthless dark beyond her flickering safe place as a dungeon that went on forever.

The one-eyed man was there too, skirting the edges of the light as if walking into it would disperse him. She realized the dull, tarnished glimmer that winked off him when he moved was metal- the dark man was covered head to toe in black armor that reminded her of a knight from the stories her mother told her.

Only…wasn't it the _bad_ knights that wore black armor?

"Don't be afraid, Rose." His voice was calm and level, neither threatening nor comforting.

"I'm not scared," the eight year old repudiated. And she wasn't. All her fear had drained away hours ago when she ran out of tears. Now she was just angry; she despised this man who stole her from her familiar bed, her home, her mom, her life.

It was a liberating realization: the fear went away when you replaced it with hate.

The man tilted his head in a way that reminded Rose of a big, curious dog. "No you aren't, are you." It wasn't a question. He actually sounded pleased.

"I want to go home!" She demanded.

"I will happily return you to your mother, if that is your wish," the man said reasonably. "I just wanted to talk to you in private first, Rose."

"How do you know my name?"

"Oh, I know a great deal more about you than just your _name_, my dear. I know you're the smartest girl in your fourth-grade class, and the only reason you haven't skipped any grades is because your mother wouldn't agree to it. You're faster than children even two years older than you, but your mother does not let you participate in any sports."

"I didn't wanna skip," Rose lied feebly, feeling obligated to defend her mother. "And I hate gym class."

"I know Jessica Parker is your only friend. Everyone else shuns and avoids you because you're better than them at everything."

Rose bit her lip and avoided the scrutinizing gaze from the man's eye. She had tried so hard to have the other kids like her, she even purposely did poorly on tests and put as little effort as she could into gym, but nothing helped.

"I also know," he said. "That your hair isn't naturally black."

Shocked, Rose couldn't stop herself from looking up at him. It had been so long since she'd seen her hair without the dyes her mother forcibly scrubbed into her scalp every two weeks. "It's…white," she admitted, not knowing why she felt she needed to tell the truth- to tell _someone_. "It's white like fresh snow. Before I started going to school Momma called me her little snowflake."

Of course, she hadn't called her that in a very long time. Saying it aloud made her realize how much she missed it. For it to be a cherished secret between mother and daughter instead of a something shameful.

"Hasn't she taught you to always tell the truth and that you shouldn't be ashamed about who you are?"

Rose was a bright girl, she could guess where the man's argument was going. "Yeah, but my mom said people wouldn't understand..."

"It sounds as if _she _doesn't understand either," the dark man opined. "No matter how much your mother dyes your hair or how hard you try to fit in at school they all treat you like you're different. They don't understand- they're incapable of understanding-but they do _know_."

"Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"I'm a teacher, Rose. It's my job to find special children so I can help them reach their full potential."

That word. "I-I'm...special?" When teachers or parents said that word they were talking about how _everyone_ was special. But when he said it...just for her...

She'd felt like a white-haired freak for so long...

He knelt down to her level. "You _are_ special Rose. In ways you can't imagine." An armored hand brushed a lock of her hair, Rose was surprised when she didn't shrink from his touch."You are something wonderful and unique..." He held up a single strand of white hair between his fingers. "Like a snowflake."

"So I have potential?" She was the only kid her class who knew that word. She suspected there were plenty of kids even in the grades above hers that didn't.

"More than even I can guess."

"And you can teach me?"

"I can, yes." He said. "But not tonight. These things take time- and you need your rest."

She _was_ tired. Somehow she had forgotten how much she missed her own bed."Can I go home now?"

"Of course, my dear. I said I would return you home if that was your wish. I'm a man of my word."

_He was_, she realized with amazement. Rose always had a funny feeling whenever people lied to her- and adults were always the worst offenders. The whole time they had talked he hadn't lied once. "Can I...see you again?"

"If that's what you want. I can visit you at night after your mother falls asleep. It can be our little secret."

"I'd think I'd like that."

"I think I would, too." The two-sided mask showed no expression, but Rose was certain she heard the smile in his voice. "Now, let's get you home. If we hurry, your mother won't even know that you were gone."

* * *

"**Sometimes you hear the bomb"**

The boy woke up thrashing as if his comforter were rubble burying him alive. When his mind finally caught up with him- reminding him when and where he was- he groaned and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. It was not the first time he'd relived that dream. The blocky digital numbers glowing dismally from his clock

(The bomb counting off the last seconds of his life)

disturbed him for some reason. Exhausted, sore, and shivering with sweat, he gave into his lesser instincts and hazarded the icy daggers of the hardwood floor stabbing his bare feet as he stumbled to the mirror hanging over his dresser.

The apartment was a space at war with itself; haphazard clutter common in every teenage boy's room conflicted with meticulous military-like organization. Isles of dirty clothes sandwiched between heavy steel shelves more appropriate for armories and warehouses, pyramids of empty pop cans shared table space with blueprints of various businesses and residences. Magazines covering a mindless spectrum of guns, video games, and swimsuit editions camouflaged strongboxes and army footlockers.

Business mingled with pleasure. A high-definition flat screen television wired to a next-generation video game setup. A worktable strewn with burglary tools and a disassembled utility belt. Shabby kitchen cabinets filled to the brim with ramen and flashbang grenades, and a refrigerator stocked with energy drinks and soda. The freezer had ice-cream and vials of a crimson, unstable chemical.

Fortunately, the landlord was kind enough to keep any questions about how an underage teenager managed to afford such an expensive rent to himself. The under-the-table cash "donations" might have helped too.

Snatching a remote from his nightstand, his numb fingers stumbled over the buttons until the stereo started tumbling the electric strumming rhythms of Jimi Hendrix.

"'_There must be some kinda way out of here'…said the Joker to the Thief…"_

"Oh screw that."

Click

"_Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am-"_

Click

"_Expert textpert choking smokers don't you think the Joker laughs at you? (ho, ho, ho, he, he, he, ha, ha-)"_

Disgusted with his luck, he killed the sound and threw the remote at a dingy pile of clothes.

When he made it to his mirror, he was glad he hadn't turned on the light. His eyes had adjusted enough to tell him a clearer look at himself wouldn't do anything to lift his spirits. Almost white skin that never saw the sun. Eye sockets that looked bruised from lack of sleep. Years of dyeing his ginger hair black had permanently given it the appearance of bloody charcoal no matter how many times he tried to wash it out.

So he just stood there in the dark, mesmerized by his own reflection, wondering where he went wrong, ignored the trembling of his hands that had nothing to do with cold. He hated when he got like this: insecure, alone, broody, miserable. Only one thing left in his life filled him with any meaning…it gave him purpose, reminded him he was cunning, self-reliant- that destiny was only what you were willing to seize for yourself.

He lifted the mask off the dresser and raised it over his face, marveling how wonderfully _whole_ he felt when it hid his own face from himself.

(Laughter. The crowbar hitting him over and over andoverandoverandover)

And the skull face of Red X chuckled ironically in his mirror. "That which does not kill you makes you stranger…"

* * *

**Secret Sharing**

Once a year, an effort is made for every Titan- East, West, and honorary alike- to gather in one place and just hang out, socialize, party, catch-up with distant friends; call it a kind of family reunion. Now there were several reasons it could only be done once a year: most of the Titans were scattered all over the globe, and super-powers or no, travel arrangements that involved crossing continents were pesky at best. And trying to plan a party around two dozen constantly hectic super-powered teenaged schedules was impossible enough just once a year. Security concerns too, ensured the day and location of the meetings were different. Having every super-hero under drinking age gathered neatly in one place would be too tempting a target for their many, many, many enemies. And no one wanted to get frozen again.

Ironically, the site for this year's powwow ended up being Titan's Tower. It was on an isolated island, had a security system Fort Knox would be getting in a few years, and was big enough to accommodate everyone. The idea was with all the elaborate location changes every year, no one would expect the Titans to gather at the most obvious place.

Or that was how Beast Boy denied the accusation he was lazy.

For its usual five inhabitants, the Tower's common room was spacious bordering on cavernous. With two dozen, it was cramped. And _loud_.

Raven was not pleased.

Still, at least everyone _else_ seemed to be enjoying themselves. Bumblebee, Kole, Argent, and Starfire were "doing the girl-talk". Robin, Speedy, and Bushido- who had no idea the others nicknamed them "The Three Musketeers"- had left for the training room an hour ago for a little casual sparring (the casual part usually tended not to last long; the rest of the party would eventually stop by later to place bets). Gnarrk, being a cave man from the Arctic Circle, was enthralled by the big screen TV and grunted enthusiastically with Cyborg over that night's football game. No one dared comment on the similarities.

Patently ignoring the rule that specifically forbid them from being around one another without supervision, Kid Flash, Thunder and Lightning were nowhere to be found- no doubt planning their encore to last year's prank.

Speaking of scheming, Mas and Menos, having heard how Starfire had learned English and Japanese, were busy hatching an intricate plot to "teach" the alien princess Spanish.

Off in a corner, Beast Boy had an effective monopoly on the karaoke machine they had rented for the night. The changeling had attracted a small audience of Titans and was hamming it up for all it was worth- his rendition of _Footloose_ had them all in hysterics. Not to mention _Hungry like the wolf_, _Kung fu Fighting_, _The W.A.N.D_,and just about every Bon Jovi song ever made.

The real show-stopper was Jinx's arrival on stage. The witch had forgone her usual uniform for a short black skirt, black combat boots, and a fishnet top over a purple t-shirt that said: 'I'm who your parents warned you about'. After stealing the microphone away from Beast Boy, Jinx kicked him off the stage to "show him how it was really done". Every Titan with a Y chromosome had their mouths hanging open when Jinx sang with no sense of decency _"I kissed a girl and I liked it!" _

Raven had had enough.

Even huddled by herself against the furthest wall wasn't enough to keep her empathic senses from feeling overwhelmed. When just one of her teammates moods felt like a temperature shift, twenty partying, hormonal teenagers was like being in a sweltering room. She was hyper, drained, mellow, happy, and dozens of other conflicting feelings all at once- and picking up the boys'...attention on Jinx while she made a fool of herself onstage was all manner of awkward.

Unfortunately, getting to the safety of her room would mean cutting through the crowd. Instead, she managed to slip away to the roof without anyone noticing.

The shift stepping outside into solitude was dramatic. An air conditioned house during a heatwave; a heavy quiet after deafening noise. It took Raven longer than usual to realize she was not _entirely_ alone. A boy with blond bushy hair and sideburns that looked to be fugitives from the seventies sat with his feet hiked out over the edge of the roof, plucking at the strings of an acoustic guitar. Before Raven could vacate the roof without being noticed, the wind slammed the door shut behind her and the boy looked back at the noise.

Bracing herself, Raven waited for the inevitable pestering questions that would lead to a conversation she wasn't at all in the mood to entertain.

And waited.

Bright, emerald green eyes stared at Raven quizzically. The boy didn't say a word.

That was when Raven finally recognized him. The blond was Jericho, a Titan that could possess anyone he wished just by making eye contact.

A Titan that was also mute.

_Duh, _Rude snorted from her domain in Nevermore.

Raven ignored her…herself…whatever. "Uh…hi," she greeted him awkwardly. "Sorry. Am I interrupting?"

Jericho shook his head and beckoned her over to him.

She approached him slowly, hesitating as she considered the spot on the ledge he offered. "You're Jericho, right? I'm Raven."

The boy smiled warmly and nodded, then made several fast, complicated gestures with his hands.

Embarrassed, Raven ducked her head further under her hood. "I'm sorry. I don't…well…I don't know sign language."

Jericho's shoulders sank. Raven felt his disappointment and loneliness.

_Way to go, moron, _Rude congratulated her. She pulled off her hood and sat next to him cross-legged. "That...doesn't mean I can't sit down."

A small smile bloomed with his gratitude. Raven felt his curiosity as he looked pointedly at the roof. Or perhaps, what was _below_ the roof.

Raven grasped his meaning immediately. "I'm not really the party type."

Interest. _Why?_

She looked down over the roof's edge, watching the waves lap the rocks on the shore. "My powers are linked to my emotions. If I let myself lose control then...bad things happen. That and the ability to feel _other_ people's doesn't help matters much. I just...had to get out there."

Jericho nodded his understanding.

"So you know my story. What are _you_ doing up here?"

With a sardonic look, the blonde played a few notes on his guitar.

"Oh, right. Stupid question."

The more Raven spent time with Jericho, the more she thought he was actually pretty interesting. His face and body language was unusually expressive- a necessity when he couldn't communicate with words, she supposed. When the sorceress lowered her barriers and really concentrated her senses on the boy, Raven was taken aback by the complex array of emotions coming from him.

Before she knew it, she was enjoying his company. It was probably the first time she was ever in a conversation where _she _was the one doing all the talking.

"So, can you actually play anything on that thing or do you just tune it to attract girls?"

Amused. Joking. The desire to show-off. Smirking, Jericho started playing a song on his guitar. Raven wasn't exactly musical, but she could tell he had talent. It wasn't often she saw live performances- the emotions he felt while he struck the chords integrated perfectly with the music. Just another way of speaking without words.

She was so engrossed it took until the end of the song for her to recognize it. "Johnny Cash?"

Surprise. Impressed. Pleased.

"Robin listens to him a lot. I think he identifies with the whole 'man in black' thing."

Satisfaction. Enjoying his audience, Jericho strummed the first melodies for _Solitary Man._

Jericho closed his eyes as he drifted into the music. Raven was content to sit quietly and listen. He played a few songs she knew and a few more she didn't, but that didn't stop her from enjoying herself.

He finished the last notes to his personal style of _All Along the Watchtower _and let out a tired breath. Smiling shyly at Raven's soft applause, he set down his guitar and pulled at his uniform's high collar- it was a summer night and he tried to cool off his neck with an ocean breeze.

Raven spotted the jagged white scar that cut across his throat just under the tan line. She didn't mean to be so rude and stare, but the implications of the wound shocked her.

When Jericho caught her peeking, she quickly looked away, face burning. "I'm sorry. That was...I shouldn't have been staring like that."

He was trying not to look at her either, she noted. Embarrassment layered over something difficult to read- something incomprehensibly dark. Shame?

"Is that why you can't-" She cut herself off. O_f course it's why, what a stupid thing to say_. _There's no way _that _was accidental._ Carefully she asked, "Who did that to you?"

But of course he couldn't tell her anything. For the first time that night Raven felt Jericho's frustration and anger for being unable to rasp out even a syllable. The scar looked old- how long had it been eating at him? To not be able to let people really understand how he felt, what had happened to him, who was responsible for stealing his voice. A burden that shouldn't be, a secret he could never share.

"You could show me," Raven blurted. The tips of her ears heat up under Jericho's puzzled expression. "If you wanted me to- I could see it."

While Jericho weighed the proposal she had thrown at him, Raven tried to fathom what in the name of Azar she was even thinking. She spends a few calm hours with a boy she barely knows and then offers to dive into his mind and experience what is no doubt one of his most traumatic memories?

But she d_id _know him, Raven thought. Unconventionally, but she knew him. She had been practically swimming in his feelings and music for hours; she knew for a fact theirs was the most intimate interaction Jericho had had in a long time.

In any case, they were both Titans. For any one else on her team that was reason enough to try and help him.

Nervous but committed, Jericho nodded.

They sat across from each other cross-legged and Raven coached him through the ritual. It was essentially the same spell she used to peek into Robin's mind when he was hallucinating Slade, only more precise and less dangerous. Theoretically. He closed his eyes and presented his bare throat to her. Raven's fingers brushed the sensitive skin, feeling the bump of the scar. She found her center, timed her breathing with Jericho's pulse.

_"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."_

She knew the spell worked when she opened her eyes and saw herself, through Jericho's eyes, touching her throat _(no, it's _his_ throat- it's too easy to lose your self of self like this)_. The scar was a physical link to the exact memory she was looking for- and she followed it through the dark. A sensation between falling and being irresistibly pulled. Seeing another's memories was like being on a train- only one direction to go and there's nothing to do but go along for the ride.

She opened her eyes again.

It was difficult to tell where she was exactly. She's surrounded by shadows and decay. All her _(his, _she had to remind herself) focus was on the man in front of her: body armor, armed to the teeth, a familiar _(to her but not to him)_ mask. In his grasp was saber dripping liquid ruby in one hand and pointed a pistol at her _(him)_ with the other.

No, not at her. A strong arm held her close to someone behind. The cold steel of a knife pressed threateningly at her throat.

"At first I thought the stories about you were exaggerated," her captor said. "But after seeing you in action, I've got to admit you've certainly earned your nickname."

Stone-still, the man replied with cold sibilance _(a voice both of them know so well)_."I could say the same about yours, Jackal. Going after a man's family."

"Spare me the self-righteous bull, Major. We're both in the same line of work. They pay us to do a job and we do it by any means necessary."

"I don't kidnap children."

"I _do,_" Jackal said. "And I've done a hell of a lot worse to get where I am. But you, you've got a _code_," he sneered at the word. "No bystanders, no families, no children, no divulging the client's name for _any_ reason." The knife is pressed harder against her throat."Just how far are you willing to take that rule?"

The fear and tears wrestled with the child's hope. _He's here to save me, he won't let anything happen to me, he'll kill all the bad guys and I'll be safe and we'll go home to Mom and Grant._

"You know I'm not going to give you that information, Walsh. And I know you're not going to kill him."

"And why's that?"

"He's the only reason you're still alive," he hissed. "Let him go, and I just might let you walk away from this."

"A generous offer, but I have a few rules of my own: Finish the jobs I'm given, never get into a fight I can't win, and..."

She spotted the silhouette moving behind him, but his attention was firmly fixed on her and the Jackal.

"...Never bluff."

Her mouth opened on its own, trying to shout a warning. _"Dad! Look o-" _

The blade drew searing heat across her throat and instead of screaming all she could do was inhale like she swallowed ground glass.

Falling again. She tried to bolt upright and gasped as strong hands held her down.

It was him. Azar it was _him_. The costume was different and he had both of his eyes but gods she will_ never _forget that voice.

_Oh, and happy birthday._

"Raven!"

Her powers almost lash out but at the last moment she grappled them back under control. The hands on her shoulders were supportive, not malicious. She's relieved to feel the roof of the Tower, the familiar breath of the waves hitting the island, the open night sky above her.

"Rae!" Beast Boy face hovered over hers, looking worried. "You alright?"

"I'm fine, Beast Boy," Raven was surprised to hear her own voice. Her hand instinctively went to her throat to feel for a scar, or maybe a gaping knife-wound.

"You sure?" Cyborg asks. She hadn't even noticed he was there too. "What even happened?

She skirted the question by holding up her hands and asked the boys to help her up. It wasn't really that much of a ruse- her head was _killing_ her.

"How did you even know I was up here?"

"Jericho called for help," Beast Boy said.

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"Text message." Cyborg explained.

"Ah." _Jericho._ She tried inconspicuously to look around Cyborg for the blond.

"Friend Raven!" was only warning she had before a blur of orange and purple caught her in a crushing hug. "We had heard there was an emergency! Are you unharmed?"

"...I was..." she choked.

Robin had also appeared on the roof and looked at his team for an explanation. "What happened?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Cyborg replied.

There. Raven spotted Jericho behind the others, quiet and in the background. She didn't need empathic powers to see the guilt on his face. "I'm okay," she said as she pried off Starfire. "The party was getting too crowded for me, so I came up to the roof to meditate. I guess I underestimated just how unbalanced I was. Sorry to worry you all."

"Well, we're just glad Jericho was here," Robin said.

"Yes," Raven says to him. "Thank you." Her hands moved with a trace of memory and formed signs she somehow knew to mean, _Not your fault. _He smiled tentatively back at her until Starfire trapped him in a 'hug of thanks'.

Pulling up her hood, Raven asked. "Is the party over yet?"

Cyborg shook his head. "Still going strong. Last I saw Jinx was leading all the lady Titans through a chorus of _'save a horse, ride a cowboy'_."

"Charming."

An sudden wind whipped at Raven's cloak when Mas Y Menos zipped onto the roof in front of her, stacked on each other like an annoying totem pole.

"¿Somos demasiado tarde?" Menos said.

Mas waggled his eyebrows. "¿Necesita boca-a-boca?"

Raven groaned. Those hyperactive idiots were _not_ helping her headache. "What are they going on about?"

"They are wondering if Friend Raven is to be needing the mouth-to-mouth," Starfire translated.

"They're welcome to try, but no court would convict me."

Robin blinked. "Star? When did you learn Spanish?"

* * *

**Heeeeey guys. Remember when I said I'd post this chapter a few days after the part I? Well, as I've been chewing on my sneaker for the past two years **_**more**_** stuff happened. How rude is reality, am I right? Long story short, the family has a new addition- I've spent a good two decades being the baby of the family and now I have a little brother. He's twenty months old now and I call him the Ewok because he's adorable but you can't understand a word he says. **

**You'll notice that Saiyoko and I have been absent for quite a long time, and we are sorry for that, but working so we can live unfortunately takes priority. One cannot live on reviews alone (though that would be sweet if you could). Well, **_**'theredrobin', **_**you **_**did **_**say you'd be perfectly willing to wait another two years- congratulations, you're prophetic!**

**Kidding aside, I'm living on my own now and while things aren't necessarily calmer, they are under control for now. I already posted another one-shot on my account a few days ago and have several new chapters for Five Stories in the works, but I know better than to promise anything (consider **_**that **_**lesson learned). All I can do is what everyone is really doing right now: buckling down and hoping for the best. **

**Thanks for reading, **

**-Cy**

**P.S. **_**All Along the Watchtower**_** is originally the property of Bob Dylan, **_**Stuck in the Middle With You**_** belongs to Stealers Wheel, **_**I am the Walrus**_** is from The Beatles, **_**I Kissed A Girl**_** is Katy Perry's, and **_**Save a Horse**_** is Big and Rich. **

**P.P.S. I hope my Spanish wasn't terrible- I took Japanese in High School. **


	13. Home for the Holidays

**God, I _wish_ I owned the Titans. The royalties alone would pay my student loans. Oh, I don't own Nerf either. You'll see. **

_Christmas gift suggestions:  
To your enemy, forgiveness.  
To an opponent, tolerance.  
To a friend, your heart.  
To a customer, service.  
To all, charity.  
To every child, a good example.  
To yourself, respect. _

**-Oren Arnold**

* * *

**Let's Get Dangerous**

It was Halloween Night and the Titans had just caught three diamond thieves while they were on their way to a costume party. Well, four diamond thieves, if you counted the getaway driver Raven captured with the abyss of darkness in her cloak. Hands cuffed with plastic binders, Richard Nixon, Jason Voorhees, and the Ghost-Face from _Scream _sat on the sidewalk waiting for the cops to pick them up while their accomplice in zombie makeup was curled in the fetal position babbling incoherently.

"Well team," Robin said. "It took thirty years but Nixon is finally in handcuffs."

Ghost-Face leaned to his partner. "I _told_ you you should have gone with Clinton."

"So wait," Jason looked around at the Titans. "What are you guys doing wearing Halloween costumes? Don't you wear weird costumes like, everyday?"

"Those are our normal clothes," Robin replied.

"Speak for yourself," Cyborg cut in."Technically I kinda walk around naked."

"Then who are you all supposed to be?" Ghost-face asked.

Robin, with a purple suit, cape, and a wide-brimmed hat to go with his mask said, "Darkwing Duck."

Cyborg lifted the visor of his helmet. "I'm Alphonse from Fullmetal Alchemist."

Floating in the air in her pink dress, Starfire beamed, "I am Princess Bubblegum from the Adventure Time."

The three robbers looked to each other for explanations, and finding none, shrugged. "Yeah, none of us have heard of those people," Nixon said.

"I have a feeling there's a generation gap here," Raven noted.

"Well what about her?" Jason cocked his head at Raven. "Why isn't she dressed up?"

"I don't need a costume."

"Oh God, I think I saw forever!" Zombie blurted.

"Happy Halloween," Raven said to him.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Nixon said. "But aren't you guys missing a member?"

Right on cue, Beast Boy rounded the corner in a tweed jacket and bow-tie, panting heavily as he jogged. "Dudes, sorry I'm late!"

"Beast Boy, where have you been?" Robin demanded.

"I got here as fast as I could, okay? I ran like, five blocks. Seriously Cy, you couldn't have picked me up?"

"Why didn't you turn into something that run can faster?" Cyborg pointed out. "Or...y'know, _flew_?"

Affronted, Beast Boy stiffened and adjusted his bow-tie. "I'm in my Doctor Who costume, not my Doom Patrol outfit."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "So?"

"So, don't you guys ever wonder why I still wear that thing? Finding a material that shifts with me is really hard to come by! If I transform in normal clothes I...uh..."

"You what, friend?" Starfire asked.

The changeling ducked his head, blushing. "I'd...be...naked..."

Everyone, Titans and diamond thieves alike, were dead quiet. All except for the zombie on the ground, who started speaking in a pidgin of Sumerian and the tongue of the Old Ones he had learned during his few seconds in the Void.

"And now that mental image that will haunt me in my dreams," Raven groaned.

Ghost-Face hung his head. "This has to be the weirdest heist I've ever been on."

* * *

**Back Door Santa **

Red X loved Christmas.

Not because of that crap about the 'spirit of giving' or 'peace on earth,' mind you. No, his reasons were far less immaterial. It was the _avarice_, the month-long frenzy of shoppers vying to grab whatever they could. The stampedes of shoppers, the wrestling over that last item on the shelf, fist fights and pepper spray.

When it was all over and they would settle around the Christmas tree and convince themselves it was all about the giving, but X knew better. The thrill of the hunt and chase, the challenge, the rush when _you're_ the one come out on top; the only difference between shopaholics and master thieves was the quality of the high.

Christmas was the best time of the year professionally, too. All the merchandise and money flooding the market at once made it that much easier for X's...enterprising to go unnoticed in the fray of the season.

Of course, there was plenty of room for other, far less dashing entrepreneurs to take advantage of the situation too. Most were pretty harmless like DVD bootlegs or stolen electronics; he had trouble feeling sorry for the suckers that fell for internet scams- it's the _internet_, morons.

But a successful criminal career is a marathon, not a sprint. Whenever X finished a handful of big jobs he always dropped off the grid for a bit to keep the cops and the capes off his trail. After scoring a nice set of choice diamonds and driving off with some rich schmuck's quarter-million dollar import, X was planning to enjoy his spoils and take it easy until New Year's.

Despite the economy, the hot Christmas item was some singing troll doll or something. As usual, everyone wanted one, there weren't enough to go around, and desperate parents were willing pay way more than what was sensible to get a hold of it. Then a reliable fence passed on some info that the toy company that makes the stupid doll was sitting on a warehouse full of the things. As it turned out they were purposely shipping limited numbers to keep demand up and make a killing. Apparently what worked for Saudi oil magnates worked just as well for toy makers.

X decided this was as good enough reason as any to break his own rule 'cause hey, he was all about breaking rules.

One stolen truck later, X was spending his Christmas Eve working his way down a list of Jump City's biggest orphanages and group homes.

It was pretty masterful, really. The only snag was around stop number five.

"...Santa?"

Half-way through arranging that house's presents under the tree, Red-X slowly turned to find a mousy, ginger boy probably no older than six staring at him.

_Damn, really? I can slip into bank vaults and high-security labs without anyone knowing I was there and I get caught by some kid in _Phineas and Ferb_ PJs?_

Towering over the boy like a terrible wraith, X leaned towards him and pointed to his skull mask."Do I _look_ like Santa Claus, kid?"

The boy blinked a few times, as if weighing all the evidence. Probably could have avoided the misunderstanding if X wasn't wearing a red Santa hat. "Then...who are you?"

"I'm..." an idea came to mind; he flourished his black cape and reached out for the kid menacingly. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Future!"

Wide-eyed, the kid gasped appropriately and stepped backwards. "But...but...why are you here? Where's Santa?"

"Oh, Nick stopped making the deliveries himself years ago ever since people stopped using fireplaces. Now he just uses ghosts 'cause we can go through walls and don't need reindeer."

Kid seemed to be thinking really hard about this new information. X figured he better put an end to it before he started asking more questions, like kids always do. "Plus," he added. "If we run into naughty little boys and girls who stay up late trying to catch Santa, _we get to eat their souls_!"

Right as the boy opened his mouth to scream in terror, X said "Don't scream." and he clamped his hands over his own mouth. "Please don't eat my soul, Mr. Ghost, I like my soul! I promise to go to bed if you let me go!"

X tapped his chin thoughtfully as he considered the boy's offer, then shrugged. "Fine, I'll let you off the hook this time- just make sure I don't catch you next year."

"If I'm extra good, do you think you can get me a mom and dad, Mr. Ghost? I won't mind if you get me two moms or two dads either, Miss Zoe says they're just as good."

For a moment there, X just stared down at the simple, pleading look the red-haired boy gave him and had to fight off the distant memory that made the back of his head shudder. "I'll...uh...do my best kid. No promises."

"Thanks!"

Placing the last of the presents under the tree, X spotted a plate of chocolate chip cookies set on a table under the window. "I'll be taking these."

"But I thought ghosts couldn't eat people food."

"I'm hungry. It's either that or your soul."

"Don't forget the milk."

* * *

**Tabula Rasa **

"Why was I not told about this?" Beast Boy demanded.

"About what? Nerf guns?" Cyborg said. "We...kinda thought you knew about them."

The shape-shifter gestured widely at the wall. "Not _just _Nerf guns, Cy! Since when have then been so...so...awesome?"

"I do not understand," Starfire said, looking over the shelves and shelves of colorful guns. "These are...toy weapons for children, yes?"

"Pretty much," Cyborg confirmed.

"Dude, they're not just toy guns!" Beast Boy picked up a massive box and held it for all to see. "Machine-gun Nerf guns. _Machine-guns_! When I was a kid they fired one- count it- _one_ dart, then you had to reload and pump it."

Raven looked less than overwhelmed with this mind-boggling advancement in Nerf technology."Oh yes, the tragic fate of mankind to find ever more elaborate ways to shoot foam darts at each other. How the poets lament."

"It's just weird, y'know? I feel like I fought in the Revolutionary War or something with my old Nerf gun. Now it's like...like...uh...when were machine-guns invented?"

"Depends on what you qualify as a machine gun," Robin explained. "They had Gatling guns all the way back in the Civil War."

BB checked the box again. "This one has an ammo box feeding a belt of Nerf darts."

"That's World War One, then."

"Boys and their toys," Raven muttered.

"This is actually kind of disturbing," Robin said. "They look less like toys and are functionally more like real guns. Machine guns, clips, a Nerf sniper rifle- and look," he picked up a small box with two magazines full of Nerf darts attached to each other. "Double-clips. _Commandos _use double-clips."

"Rob's kinda got a point," Cy said. "It's like now they're trying to get toys as close to the real thing as possible."

"It is only natural for young children to simulate combat," Starfire said. "On Tamaran we made replicas of Okaaran battle-blades to play with."

Robin shook his head. "I just don't like guns."

"Dudes, Star's right, they're just toys. I don't know about you guys, but I'm tempted to-"

"Bee," Cyborg interrupted.

"What?"

A metal finger pointed. "I think you have a fan."

The team looked and saw a toddler standing at the end of the aisle. He was big for his age, with a black tangle of thin air, olive skin, and seemed to be utterly enraptured by the green boy in front of him. A man with glasses and a five o'clock shadow stood a little behind the boy, keeping watch but otherwise staying out of the way.

Beast Boy grinned with a mouthful of fangs and crouched down. "Hey pal, what's up?"

The boy smiled and made big, steady strides on his little feet and crossed the distance between them quicker than BB thought.

"Green," the boy said confidently. Starfire giggled.

Beast Boy nodded. "Yeah, I'm green, but you can call me Beast Boy. What's your name?"

A little hand made the 'peace' sign. "Two!"

"Two? That's a funny name."

Raven said, "I think that's his age, nit-"

The shifter didn't even acknowledge her. "Well Two, it's nice ta meet ya."

Beast Boy loved kids. He didn't believe kids were the epitome of innocent, but they were honest. Nice, selfish, loud, sweet, cute, and petty; pure people with all the good and the bad and not old enough to start trying to hide it. When he talked to kids he treated them like people, not like pets to be cooed over. Besides, baby talk was bad for their language development.

"Hey Two, can you say Beast Boy? C'mon, try! Beeeeast Booooy."

"Apple."

"Close enough."

The rest of the Titans laughed.

"Hey, wanna see a magic trick?" At Two's curious expression, Beast Boy counted down with his fingers. "Three...two..."

"Two!"

"One!" He transformed into a big Great Dane, panting with his tongue and flopping his tail on the floor happily.

Two squeaked, "Doggie!" Walked closer to Beast Boy and patted his side. "Nice doggie. Good."

The Great Dane shifted into a cat, and after arching his back to Two's delicate pets, meowed and darted past him.

"Well what are you waiting for, little guy?" Cyborg encouraged. "Go get him!"

Two smiled up at Cyborg, turned around and chased after Beast-Kitty, laughing as he went.

For the rest of that day, gathering a crowd of kids of amused parents, the Teen Titans played in a toy store.

* * *

**Stolen Snow**

During her first year on Earth and with the Titans, Raven was pretty apathetic about Christmas. Being raised on Azarath made it hard to get very excited about ornaments, tinsel, or bad Christmas carols. The fact that Starfire was an alien and was enthusiastically diving in the season only increased her annoyance.

It just seemed so...contrived to her. Having to listen to everyone sing and go on about charity and good spirit and then watching them all run around in some mad rush to buy gifts.

And then that first Christmas morning at the Tower came and gifts were exchanged. Raven almost dreaded finding out what Beast Boy _thought_ she would like and ended up speechless when she unwrapped Poe's collected anthologies.

Sure everyone was happy when they received their presents, but Raven's empathic powers told her they were positively beaming when a teammate opened up a gift from them.

_Azar's blood, Beast Boy's stupid Christmas movies are true. _

That next Christmas, Raven put extra effort into finding the perfect gifts for her friends.

Every year she spent with the Titans, the more she enjoyed Christmas. Not the stupid Christmas with all the frantic shoppers and petty religious arguments on the news; she just wanted that Christmas morning with the closest thing she had to family.

She never realized how much she came to depend of Beast Boy's enthusiasm for the season until that year it seemed he...well..._wasn't_...

One day she found him on their rock in the rain, watching the tide wash over the shore. She sat down next to him and extended the umbrella of dark energy to cover him, too.

"You'll get pneumonia sitting out in the rain," she told him.

"It's December," he grumbled. "It's December and its been raining all month."

"We live on the west coast, Beast Boy. Don't tell me you were expecting a winter wonderland."

"I know, I know, it's just..." He hugged his knees close to him and looked down at his feet. "It just doesn't _feel _like Christmas, y'know? Like we're just going through the motions."

"You're getting older, Beast Boy. When you start growing up, Christmas seems less like a magical time and more like...just a day you have to buy presents for."

"But it's _not_ just another day, Rae. It's Christmas. Some of the best days of my life was playing in the snow with my Dad, drinking hot cocoa with the Doom Patrol," he looked up at her. "Christmas mornings with you and Cy and laughing at Star trying to get Robin under the mistletoe."

He turned back to the ocean and mumbled. "Grown-up Christmases suck."

That was when Raven decided what she was going to get him that year.

* * *

"Beast Boy! Friend Beast Boy you must wake up!"

The changeling groaned and tried to burrow further into his blanket. "Come on Star, it's Christmas. Just lemme sleep..."

"No friend, you must come see! It is a Christmas miracle!"

Half-asleep and still in his pajamas, Beast Boy let Starfire take his hand and drag him through the tower. He only realized she had taken him outside when the rush of air hit him and he stepped in something soft and cold.

"Wha-?"

Not believing what he was seeing, he had to blink a few times. He looked to Starfire, who was nodded excitedly, and blinked a few more times.

It was _snowing_.

Their island was covered with almost a full foot of snow, and one look at the Jump skyline revealed that this freakish weather was localized to only the tower.

Then he saw Raven standing there in her heavy winter cloak and ran to her.

"It's about time," she said. "I was starting to think you were going to stay in bed all morning."

"Rae? What is all of this?"

"I'm told this is known as 'snow' in some areas of the country."

"No, I mean how did you _do_ this?"

She lifted a finger up to the sky. "I called in Herald. He placed a small portal above the tower that leads to some remote tundra in Siberia."

Beast Boy looked around at all the pristine, glittering white. "This is all Russian snow? We're stealing snow like people steal cable?"

"They have plenty, I doubt they'll miss it."

They both turned when Starfire dragged Robin and Cyborg outside to see the 'Christmas Miracle.' Slack jawed, they glanced at Raven and laughed when she shrugged.

"So," she said to Beast Boy. "Is this a white enough Christmas for you?"

"Raven this is just...awesome," she didn't expect him to pull her into a hug. "Seriously, thanks so much for this."

Blushing a little, she pried him off of her. "Well, just remember to thank Herald too. He said the portal has a twenty-four hour decay rate, so we'll only have it for the rest of the day."

"I can work with that." He gave her the idiot grin she had been hoping for, then purposely fell backwards as if a strong wind had tipped him over.

"Snow angels!" Beast Boy said from the ground. "C'mon Rae!"

"I made the snow, I am under no obligation to enjoy it."

"Fine, be that way. Hey Cy! Rob! Christmas snowball fight!"

Cyborg whooped. "Oh it is ON, little man!"

Raven stood with her stolen Siberian snow as the the boys ran around throwing snowballs at each other like kids half their age. Next to her, Starfire stared at her and squealed with barely contained excitement.

Relenting, Raven sighed. "Yes, Starfire?"

"I said nothing," she said innocently. "I am merely thinking how sweet it was for you to do this for friend Beast Boy."

"It's not Christmas if Beast Boy isn't acting like a idiot."

And then a snowball smacked the side of her hood.

"Opps, my bad!"

Raven brushed the snow off and glanced at Starfire. "Boys versus girls?"

The warrior princess of Tamaran already had her arms full with a massive snowball. "I am ahead of you."

* * *

**Two Families **

Robin has been thinking about doing this for a long time. It's only been a few months since he started seriously considering it.

Now it's Christmas Day. The rest of his team (his friends, his family) are busy playing in the snow Raven made and he snuck away to his workshop precisely to do this. Instead he's been sitting in his chair for the past fifteen minutes, staring at the computer.

He thinks about the impossible weather outside, just because Raven wanted Beast Boy to smile. Thinks about how Cyborg and him butt heads and argue but remembers there's no one else on this earth he considers a big brother. Thinks of Starfire baking Christmas cookies and smiling at him under the mistletoe.

Thinks about what's missing.

It takes another fifteen minutes to set up the call. The security protocols are a little different and it takes time for a secure signal to bounce across three satellites, twelve countries, and five states before being rerouted. It will have to do.

A puzzled British voice answers. "Hello?"

Robin realizes he was holding his breath. "I'm surprised my code still works after so long."

A surprised noise followed by a long pause. Then, heavy with emotion, "Our way of leaving the door unlocked, should you ever wish to come home. How have been, my boy?"

"I'm fine, Alfred. Wanted to call and see if you were having a merry Christmas."

He can almost imagine the smile on the other end of the line. "It has recently become quite wondrous, Master Richard."

Robin can't help but smile too. Thinks about the one day of the year he was allowed to sleep in, coming down the long stairs to Alfred's hot cocoa and a tree bristling with presents."Is...is he up? I know he usually sleeps in after working late."

"Under the circumstances, I don't think he'll mind being roused this one time."

* * *

**What do you know, this took several months instead of several years, I must be improving. A little late for holiday junk, I know, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. **

**Sorry this couldn't have come out sooner, but I between graduating college and working in retail this holiday season I literally had no time to spare for _sleep._ But rejoice, for the hell of the holiday shopping is past and I am now a indebted college graduate ready to go out with my degree in...**

**Oh God I'm a college graduate in this market. Excuse me while I find some ice cream or something. **

**I hope you enjoyed your various holidays with friends and family, and I wish all you a Happy New Year- at least until the elections start up. **

**Reviews appreciated!**

**-Cy **


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